More than 100 people, many of them widows, called Sunday for international help in identifying remains found in the latest mass grave to be uncovered in Afghanistan. The women, joined by a few children and men, gathered outside the UN mission in Kabul where they held up images of their loved ones as they called for those behind the atrocities to be brought to justice.
The latest grave was found last month three kilometres (two miles) outside Kabul at the site of weapons bunkers dating back to the 1979-1989 Soviet occupation. Officials have said it could contain the bodies of hundreds of people who have gone missing during nearly three decades of war, but investigations have yet to confirm this. Some of the demonstrators shouted slogans against former "warlords," many of whom now hold senior government posts or are members of Afghanistan's first democratically elected parliament.
One girl held up a placard reading: "I want the person who killed my father to come to court." "They have killed our husbands and sons and they deserve nothing but trial," said one demonstrator, who gave her name only as Fazila.
She said 10 members of her family had been killed in the violence, including a bloody 1992-1996 civil war that followed the defeat of communism. The United Nations said it was working with the government to ensure forensic investigations were conducted to identify the bodies in the grave. Human rights officials have said there are at least 20 mass graves around Afghanistan, where wars since 1979 have left between four and five million people dead, and thousands more missing.
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