Civilians killed by explosives in Mideast rises in 2017

(MENA) – More than 15,000 civilians were killed by explosive weapons in 2017, a jump of 42% in a year, according to a global survey seen by The Guardian.

The rise – driven by airstrikes, which killed almost double the number of civilians in 2017 compared with the previous year – coincided with US-led military operations to reclaim Daesh strongholds of Mosul, in Iraq, and Raqqa, in Syria.

British lawmakers said the figures were “deeply concerning” and raised questions over the transparency of legal criteria used by the Ministry of Defence to determine whether an individual is a Daesh combatant.

The UK has said it has no credible evidence of its airstrikes resulting in civilian deaths, while the US military has revealed it unintentionally killed at least 801 civilians in Syria and Iraq.

The global survey, compiled by Action on Armed Violence, an organisation that highlights civilian harm from explosive weapons, suggests the civilian death toll from air-launched explosives rose by 82%, from 4,902 in 2016, to 8,932 in 2017.

The worst impacted countries were Syria, where civilian deaths increased by 55% to 8,051, Iraq, where there was a 50% increase, to 3,271, and Afghanistan, where 994 non-combatants died.

Clive Lewis, chair of the all-party parliamentary group on drones, called on the MoD to reassure the public over its commitment to reducing civilian harm by revealing how enemy combatants are identified.

“One of the challenges that has emerged from our military efforts against Isis (Daesh) in Iraq and Syria is a lack of clarity regarding the legal criteria by which the MoD determines an individual to be an Isis combatant,” Lewis said.

The figures outlined in the survey, compiled from English wire reports of individual incidents, are significantly higher than official statistics but below those of other monitoring groups.