Fighting forces 3,000 to flee

More than 3,000 villagers are on the move following intense fighting between the Taliban and security forces in Afghanistan’s restive southern province of Kandahar, officials from the International Organization for Migration (IOM) confirmed on Thursday. “Nearly 3,000 residents of Panjwayi district and another 200 individuals from Ziari Dasht district have fled their homes due to heavy fighting and have entered Kandahar city,” Mohammad Nasim Karim, head of the IOM office in Kandahar, told IRIN. “People are in terrible conditions, many complain that their houses were destroyed and that they have lost some of their family members during the fighting,” Karim explained. Panjwayi district is located about 35 km west of Kandahar city. The area has seen three major anti-Taliban operations and heavy air strikes from US-led coalition forces over the past week. There has been an upsurge in fighting in southern Afghanistan over the past week. Officials estimate around 300 people, mainly militants, have been killed since last Wednesday. At least 16 civilians are also known to have died in some of the fiercest fighting since the fall of the Taliban in late 2001. Aid organisations are assessing the security situation in the south in order to ensure the safety of staff and beneficiaries. A local human rights watchdog has called on government and US-led coalition forces to take strict measures to ensure the safety of civilians during increasingly common clashes with insurgents. “Regrettably, many people, including children, women and elderly men, have been killed or injured during US and government operations in Panjwayi district, which is an obvious violation of human rights,” the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) said in a statement released Wednesday in Kabul. Insecurity remains a key issue in the war-ravaged Afghanistan, which is recovering from more than three decades of brutal civil war. More than 600 people, many of them militants, have been killed during 2006 in various violent incidents across the country.