The UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) released a report [report, PDF] Saturday describing human rights abuses in Kunduz, Afghanistan, during a temporary occupation by the Taliban. The report released preliminary figures of 289 civilian deaths and 559 civilian injuries [AP report] that occurred from September 28 to October 13, 2015. During this period the Taliban attacked and occupied the city. In the initial attack they “freed over 600 prisoners from the Kunduz prison [and] enabled the prisoners to join the fight against the Afghan security forces.” Fighting ended and the Afghan security forces (ASF) and the international military forces (IMF) recaptured the city on October 13 when the Taliban announced their withdrawal from the city. The report states that basic human rights were lost during this period. In addition to arbitrary killings, criminality, and loss of life, the UNAMA also received reports of targeted and deliberate killings:

UNAMA confirmed that during the first days of their occupation of Kunduz city, Taliban fighters carried out systematic searches for women’s rights and civil society activists, human rights defenders, and staff members of NGOs and other international organizations, including UNAMA. These systematic searches created an environment of fear and resulted in widespread displacement of these individuals.

According to the report, airstrikes conducted by ASF and IMF resulted in 81 civilian casualties including an attack [UN News Centre report] on a Doctors Without Borders (MSF) hospital in Kunduz on October 3 by a US aircraft. The Commander of the US Forces in Afghanistan maintains that the hospital was “mistakenly struck” [NYT report], while MSF maintains that they had previously provided the US and Afghan military forces the precise GPS coordinates of the hospital and that the attack “continued 30 minutes after MSF first informed the [US] and NATO officials that the hospital was under aerial attack”.

Last month, the US Department of Defense (DOD) and Pentagon officials completed their investigation into the October 3 bombing of the MSF hospital in Kunduz and announced [statement] that it was an “avoidable accident caused primarily by human error” and that the military service members who were most closely related to the bombing have been suspended [JURIST report]. In October MSF called for an independent investigation [JURIST report] into the attack by the International Humanitarian Fact-Finding Commission. Also in October the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights called for an investigation [JURIST report] into the Kunduz hospital attack and for the results of an investigation to be made public. Several days prior to the hospital attack, the UN rights leader also requested that all parties in the Taliban attack in Kunduz attempt to keep civilians out of harm [JURIST report].