Afghan Massacre: The Convoy of Death (2002)

Directed by

Jamie Doran

Genre

documentary film

Country

United Kingdom

Runtime

50 min

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

This documentary investigates allegations of war crimes committed by a Northern Alliance faction against surrendered Taliban fighters in 2001. It presents testimony that hundreds of prisoners died during transport in sealed containers. The film also examines claims of American involvement in the events.

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What happens

Afghan Massacre: The Convoy of Death (earlier title: Massacre at Mazar) is a 2002 documentary by Irish filmmaker Jamie Doran and Afghan journalist Najibullah Quraishi. It documents alleged war crimes committed by National Islamic Movement of Afghanistan, a faction of the Northern Alliance under the command of General Abdul Rashid Dostum, against captured Taliban fighters. The Taliban fighters, who had surrendered to Dostum's troops after the November 2001 siege of Kunduz, were transported to Sheberghan prison in sealed containers. Human rights groups estimate that several hundred of them died during and after this transit. The documentary presents testimony from interviewees stating that American military personnel were present at and complicit in some of the alleged war crimes, which became known as the Dasht-i-Leili massacre. A short early version of the documentary was shown to the European and German parliaments in June 2002, causing widespread concern in Europe. Against protests from the United States government, the completed documentary was shown later that year on many countries' national television channels, including German, British, Italian and Australian television. The programme was not screened in the US and received no US media coverage. A Newsweek report in August 2002, based on a leaked UN memo, did confirm some of the details in Doran's documentary, as well as the presence of mass graves in the Dasht-i-Leili desert, but made no mention of the documentary. In July 2009, Barack Obama, the president of the United States, ordered a probe into allegations that the Bush administration had resisted efforts to have the massacre investigated. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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