UN Report: US Drones Strikes Cause Increased Death Toll in Afghanistan, Yemen

Local Editor

A UN report calls for a thorough investigation into the US drone strikes causing a rise in death causalities in Afghanistan and Yemen, said the UN special investigator Ben Emmerson to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on Thursday.

In his presentation, Emmerson said that the use of drone strikes in those two countries is intensifying civilian deaths greatly. The number of civilian casualties by US drone strikes in Afghanistan has tripled in 2013. As for Yemen, he said that, "the frequency of armed drone strikes appears to have intensified, particularly during the closing months of 2013, with a sharp escalation in the number of reported civilian casualties." He pointed to a slight decline in drone strikes in Pakistan because the government called for the US to reduce them.
His report concluded that states have an obligation to inquire further into cases relating to civilian causalities.

Moreover, Emmerson stated: "Having regard to the duty of states to protect civilians in armed conflict, the special rapporteur concluded that in any case in which there have been, or appear to have been, civilian casualties that were not anticipated when the attack was planned, the state responsible is under an obligation to conduct a prompt, independent and impartial fact-finding inquiry and to provide a detailed public explanation of the results."

He added, "This obligation would be triggered whenever there is a plausible indication from any apparently reliable source that unintended civilian casualties may have been sustained."

Emmerson's report calls for independent investigations to be carried out into the series of drone attacks that result in civilian deaths, which are mostly carried out by the US in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, and other places.

He examined about 30 drone strikes that were launched by American, British and "Israeli" forces involving civilian people in Afghanistan, Gaza, Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen.

He noted that the "Israeli" entity claimed it aimed for zero civilian casualties, giving an advance warning of attack when possible. However, Emmerson "identified a number of sample strikes in which there are credible allegations that civilians were killed or injured as the result of ‘Israeli' drone strikes in Gaza."

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team