UK pays £1.3m compensation for Afghan casualties

London, Mar 30, IRNA – Britain’s Ministry of Defence paid out a total of £1.3 million in compensation for Afghan civilians killed as well as for property damage caused by UK troops in 2010, according to figures released under the Freedom of Information Act.

According to the Guardian, which obtained the figures, payments on average were less than half of what they asked for, varying from £542, the lowest payment for a death of a girl was killed in a fire started by a rocket to £5,000, the highest for each victim killed by a strike involving Hellfire missiles.

Sarah Holewinski, the executive director of the Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict (Civic), welcomed the compensation policy but criticised the lack of clarity.

“My concern is that there's no real transparency about who got what and what for and when, not just from the UK but from all the nations operating there,' Holewinski said.

Official figures show that compensation payments for the 2009/10 fiscal year reached £1,42 m, more than treble the £452,707 for the previous financial year and almost four times the £380,569 in 2007-08./end