News
As Afghan civilians make sense of the Brereton inquiry, one family details how an Australian raid killed three of their relatives – including a 14-year-old boy.
By
Andrew Quilty.
Afghan men having tea at dusk on the rooftop of a restaurant in Tarin Kowt.
Credit: Andrew Quilty
Malik Abdul Wakil says he heard the news of the Brereton report on the BBC. Speaking on the phone from Tarin Kowt, the capital of the Afghan province of Uruzgan, he talks about what he knows of the four-year investigation, which found that 39 civilians and captives were unlawfully killed in Afghanistan by 19 members of Australia’s special forces, most between 2009 and 2013. It was during this period, a decade ago, when Abdul Wakil lost an uncle and two cousins, one of whom was a 14-year-old boy. They were killed during an Australian raid in the village of Gurmaw Tangi in Uruzgan.