Taliban militants killed 13 members of the Hazara community in the country’s central Daikundi province as soon as they occupied Afghanistan. A 17-year-old girl was among the dead. This has been revealed in the report of the international organization Amnesty International. The report said that on August 30, around 300 Taliban arrived and killed 11 Afghan National Security Force personnel in Khidr district.
The report published in Mangalar said that 9 of these people were first taken to a river valley, then even after surrendering there, they were killed. The girl who was killed has been identified as Masuma. The girl was killed when the Afghan army personnel who were fleeing from the Taliban were chased away and she was killed in the exchange of fire.
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Amnesty said the slain Afghan army personnel ranged in age from 26 to 46. Another civilian Fayaz also died in this firing. All those killed belonged to the minority Hazara community. This is the same community against whom the Taliban have waged bloody campaigns even in their first reign. Earlier in July, the Taliban killed at least nine people of the Hazara community in Ghazni province.
The people of Afghanistan who are most at risk of losing much under the Taliban rule are groups with a different interpretation of Islam. Particularly the Shia Hazara community, the third largest ethnic group in the country that has faced discrimination for more than a century. The roots of the Hazara community in South Asia go back centuries. It was believed that their ancestors were Mongol soldiers, and recent genetic analysis has confirmed that Mongol ancestry was partly their ancestor.
Today the Hazara community constitutes ten to twenty percent of the population of Afghanistan and their traditional place is called the central region Hazarajat. This minority community holds importance in a country with a population of 38 million. People of this community are also in Pakistan, America and Britain. Most of the people of the Hazara community are Muslims and most of them also follow the minority Shia tradition. Most Muslims around the world follow the Sunni tradition. In Afghanistan too, there are constant conflicts between majority Sunni Muslims and Shia people, and the Hazara community in Afghanistan has been the target of barbaric attacks by the Taliban and its related groups in Pakistan.
