The Telegraph UK
written by Dean Nelson, South Asia Editor
Sunday April 3, 2011
United Nations staff were hunted down in a hidden bunker and slaughtered by a Muslim mob that stormed their compound last Friday, it emerged over the weekend.
Staffan de Mistura, the United Nations envoy to Afghanistan, gave the shocking details about the actions of the mob, which was protesting at the burning of a Koran overseen by the American pastor Terry Jones.
Mr de Mistura blamed Mr Jones for provoking the violence which led to the killing of seven UN employees on Friday, and which spread throughout Afghanistan over the weekend. Twenty-two people have lost their lives since protests erupted in Mazar-i-Sharif on Friday, including two policemen who were killed in clashes in Kandahar on Sunday.
Speaking on his return to Kabul from Mazar-i-Sharif, Mr de Mistura said he had been shocked by what he had seen. His staff had been shot and stabbed to death as they tried to flee in terror through a dark building from a marauding mob.
They had retreated to a bunker after some of the 3,000 protesters overran the compound, killing four of six Gurkha guards. He believed the killings had been carried out by up to 15 insurgents carrying handguns, who had infiltrated the mob.
The UN staff were hiding in complete darkness in the bunker when the protesters found them and forced open the door.
The head of mission, Pavel Ershov, spoke to the attackers in Dari, a local language, to distract them from his staff hiding behind him. They had attacked him, but stopped after he told them he was a Muslim, Mr de Mistura said.
"One was pulled out alive because he pretended to be a Muslim. He spoke the language and tried to draw their attention on himself. For a moment, he hoped that they would think there was nobody else there," he said.
The attackers shone a torch inside the bunker to find the other foreign UN staff, pulled them out one by one and killed them, he said. They shot dead three of the staff, and then slit the throat of one of them. "They were killed when they were running out of the bunker," he said.
President Barack Obama condemned Mr Jones's actions, but said they did not justify the attacks. The desecration of the Koran was "an act of extreme intolerance and bigotry", but "no religion tolerates the slaughter and beheading of innocent people, and there is no justification for such a dishonourable and deplorable act," he said.
There were fresh protests throughout the country in Jalalabad, Parwan and Kandahar yesterday, where two police officers were killed and 20 people were injured. On Saturday nine people were killed and 80 injured in gun-battles following protests in the city.
A Taliban statement accused Afghan police of shooting unarmed protesters.
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