KABUL -- The United Nations Sunday condemned the killings of 38 civilians, including 12 children, and other human rights abuses which occurred during recent violent clashes in northwest Afghanistan, said AFP.

The clashes broke out in Bala Murghab district, Badghis Province on March 24 between a coalition of factions and local commander Juma Khan, the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) and Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission said in a joint statement.

Women and children were killed, homes looted and dozens summarily executed in Akazi village in Bala Murghab, 530 kilometers (331 miles) northwest of Kabul and close to the border with Turkmenistan.

The rights commission and UNAMA joined a government delegation April 16 to 20 to Bala Murghab to investigate the clashes.

"Following a recent fact-finding assessment of violent clashes in the Bala Murghab district of Badghis Province, the AIHRC and UNAMA condemn in the strongest possible terms the perpetrators of human rights abuses and their commanders," the statement said.

"According to reports, during the recent conflict in Akazai village, 38 civilians died while 761 homes and 21 shops were looted.

"Among the persons who died were three women and 12 children who drowned in a river," it said. "Some reports say that they threw themselves in the river to escape the gunfire. Others said the women jumped in to avoid being abused by soldiers."

Local factions had also executed 26 people whose bodies were found with their hands tied behind their backs, it cited reports as saying.

"The violations which happened there are mostly similar to those which happened in other parts of the country as well," Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission spokesman Ahmad Nader Nadery told reporters at a press conference. "There's no difference between these violations which happened in Akazi and other parts of the country in the past few months."

Human rights bodies have reported abuses including harrassment, robbery and killings by militia groups in northern Afghanistan, sometimes targeted at Pashtuns who are associated by the ethnic Uzbek and Tajik populations with the ousted Taleban, which drew much of its support from Pashtun areas of south and east Afghanistan.

UN Human Rights advisor Goran Fejic said the abuses arose from a combination of factional fighting and long-standing human rights violations against the local community.

Villagers were reportedly forced to pay taxes to soldiers and other armed individuals while their cattle and harvest were also confiscated.

"Failure to comply with the demands of the soldiers resulted in ill treatment and torture and even extra-judiciary executions," the statement said.

People who resisted were often labelled as Taleban, Fejic said. The fact-finding mission also observed "gross neglect of the local population."

Problems arose from a lack of any central authority or Afghan national army presence in the area, Fejic said.

"We recommended to the government to pay more attention to the area including in social and economic aspects because ... this fact finding mission found a situation of very dramatic neglect," he said.

Nadery said the commission was going to put pressure on the local governor and was meeting later this week with the Interior Ministry and one of President Hamid Karzai's advisors.

People did not dare complain to the local authorities out of fear that it would only make things worse for them, the statement said.

The remoteness of the area often made it impossible for people to complain to the central government.

Karzai faces major challenges as he tries to extend the authority of the central government to the provinces, which are still largely controlled by warlords and local armed groups.