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Summary: UN officials in Kabul honour human rights advocate and family killed in attack. Hamida Barmaki, was killed in a suicide bombing in Kabul, alongside her husband and four children.
[30 January 2011] - Senior United Nations officials today paid tribute to Hamida Barmaki, an Afghan lawyer and human rights activist, who was killed on 28 January along with her husband and all four children in a suicide attack in a Kabul supermarket. "She died for a cause because she was working for a cause, but she died with her four children. Another reminder of the very reason she has been struggling and why we are meeting today," said Staffan de Mistura, Special Representative of the Secretary-General and head of the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA). Special Representative de Mistura and other officials had gathered today to sign an Action Plan to protect children from recruitment into Afghan National Security Forces and from other violations committed against them in the context of the conflict. Barmaki, a law professor at Kabul University and the Child Rights Commissioner of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC), had helped bring about the Action Plan. A moment of silence was held in her and her family's honour at the Afghan Ministry of Foreign Affairs before the agreement was signed. "She was a courageous, principled fighter for children and her presence will be deeply missed," said Radhika Coomaraswamy, Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict. She added that the loss "must only strengthen our resolve to prioritise and advance the protection of all children in Afghanistan." The UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) Representative Peter Crowley in Afghanistan also expressed his agency's deep shock at the killings. "She was a close partner and critical ally of UNICEF Afghanistan in promoting and advocating for child rights in the Country. Her death is a great loss to the Child Rights Unit of the AIHRC," Crowely said in a statement. UNAMA condemned the killings, adding that they follow a number of attacks on Afghan civilians in the first weeks of this year. "There can be no credible claim that this or other attacks involve legitimate targets, when these attacks indiscriminately kill and injure civilians," the Spokesperson for the Secretary-General told journalists in New York on behalf of UNAMA. Further Information: