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Asphyxiation killed many Taliban prisoners: Report

Dozens of Taliban prisoners had died after surrendering to Northern Alliance forces, asphyxiated in the shipping containers used to transport them to prison.

Colonel General Jurabek, the Northern Alliance commander in-charge of some 3,000 prisoners being held at Sheberghan prison, said 43 prisoners had died in half-a-dozen containers.

The prisoners, many of whom were foreign fighters, were brought from the town of Kunduz to the Sheberghan prison, a journey that took two to three days, the New York Times quoted him as saying.

Several Pakistani prisoners, interviewed by the United States-based daily in the prison, also said dozens of people had died in their containers.

Three others died from their wounds after arrival, and had been given a Muslim burial at the town of Dasht-i-Laili, Jurabek said.

Omar, a pale thin youth who clutched a blanket around his head and shoulders, was quoted as saying that all but seven people in his container had died from the lack of air. He estimated that more than 100 had died.

Another Pakistani said 13 had died in his container and that the survivors had taken turns to breathe through a hole in the metal wall.

Faced with transporting thousands of prisoners in the wake of an uprising near Mazar-e-Sharif, the Alliance had packed many of the detained into sealed shipping containers for the journey from Kunduz to Sheberghan, the hometown of Uzbek warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum, it said.

PTI

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