Hazaragi cap, the Hazara Yadgar logoHazara Yadgar

Mazar-i Sharif massacre of 1998

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After capturing Mazar-i Sharif on 8 August 1998, Taliban forces killed at least 2,000 people, by the estimate of Human Rights Watch. Hazara men and boys were particularly targeted.

Taliban forces captured Mazar-i Sharif on 8 August 1998. Killings, house-to-house searches and detentions continued into early September.1

The killings

Human Rights Watch believes that "at least 2,000 may have been killed in the city and possibly many more", and notes that no full investigation had been possible.1 Hazara men and boys were particularly targeted, in part because of their Shia faith. Tajik and Uzbek men were also sought out.1

Women and girls were reportedly raped and abducted. In two known cases, nearly all the men in transport containers died of asphyxiation or heat stroke on the way to Shiberghan.1 Speeches by the Taliban governor, Mulla Manon Niazi, were cited as evidence of intent at a senior level to target Hazaras.1

Eight Iranian consular officials and an Iranian journalist were also killed.1

Context

Human Rights Watch describes the killings as partly retaliation for the execution of some 2,000 Taliban prisoners by Hazara and Uzbek forces in May 1997, and also as sectarian.2

Footnotes

  1. Human Rights Watch, The Massacre in Mazar-i Sharif, November 1998. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6

  2. Human Rights Watch, Massacres of Hazaras in Afghanistan, February 2001. ↩