Red Cross: More ordinary Afghans and Pakistanis will bear brunt of Afghanistan escalation this year

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March 30, 2009

The warning comes on the eve of a United Nations conference on Afghanistan in the Netherlands on Tuesday and just days after US President Barack Obama outlined a new strategy for fighting Taliban insurgents in the volatile region.

The Swiss-run International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on Monday urged the US and others to consider the plight of civilians in Afghanistan and in northwestern Pakistan "as a matter of urgency".

"Too many civilians have been killed, maimed, humiliated, wounded and then not treated," Jacques de Maio, head of ICRC operations for South Asia, told journalists in Geneva.

"There is no such thing as a clean war and both what's going on in Afghanistan and in Pakistan right now is an ample demonstration of that... the impact on civilians is too high and can be minimized."


report: http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/politics/foreign_affairs/Concern_over_civilian_toll_of_Afghan_conflict.html?siteSect=1521&sid=10514828&cKey=1238438633000&ty=st