The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has paid out compensation in relation to 300 Afghan civilian deaths British forces are linked to, new data has shown.
According to figures kept in official MoD compensation logs, the youngest recorded civilian victim was three years old. In another incident, a family was awarded ￡4,233.60 following the death of four children who were mistakenly “shot and killed” in an incident in December 2009.
The amounts paid out vary dramatically.
In February the year before, one family received ￡104.17 following a confirmed fatality and damage to a property in Helmand province, while another was compensated ￡586.42 for the death of their son, who was 10, in December 2009.
The data, which was obtained through freedom of information requests by Action on Armed Violence (AOAV), examined the logs as western forces withdrew from Afghanistan.
Almost 7,000 compensation claims paid out by the British military during combat operations in Helmand, in Afghanistan, up until 2014 were analysed by the AOAV.
Last month the US was forced to admit that a drone strike killed 10 civilians including seven children.
Murray Jones, the author of the research, said: “These files do not make for easy reading. The banality of language means hundreds of tragic deaths, including dozens of children, read more like an inventory.”
AOAV estimates 20,390 civilians were killed or injured by international and Afghan forces during the 20-year conflict. In total the compensation logs show ￡688,000 was paid out by the UK military for incidents involving 289 deaths between 2006 and 2013.
An MoD spokesman said the amount of compensation paid is "determined by legal principles which consider the degree of injury and both past and future losses; settlements also reflect local customs and practice".
He added: “Every civilian death is a tragedy and the UK always seeks to minimise the risk of civilian casualties through our rigorous targeting processes, but that risk can never be removed entirely,” they added.