Taliban fighters massacred nine men from Afghanistan’s Hazara ethnic minority last month in a “horrifying indicator” of what may lie ahead, says a report from Amnesty International.
The human rights group detailed how the men were butchered after the Taliban took control of the mountainous Ghazni province in the centre of Afghanistan.
Six of the men were shot and three were tortured to death, including one man strangled with his own scarf. He had his arm muscles sliced off.
Another man was so heavily shot in the chest he was buried in pieces, according to witnesses.
One of the victims, 75-year-old Sayeed Ahmad, had insisted the Taliban would not harm him because of his age and that he intended to return to his village to feed his cattle. He was executed with two bullets to the chest and another in his side.
An eyewitness said: “We asked why they did this and they told us, ‘When it is the time of conflict, everyone dies, it doesn’t matter if you have guns or not. It is the time of war.’”
The Hazara community is said to be of Mongolian and central Asian descent.
