The UN in 2015 recorded its highest number of civilians killed or wounded in Afghanistan, according to a new report today, with children paying a particularly heavy toll as struggling Afghan forces faced a

militant surge.

There were 11,002 civilian casualties in 2015, a four percent rise over 2014, the UN said in the annual report, with 3,545 of them fatalities.

One in every four casualties was a child while one in ten was a woman, the report said, with the UN's special representative for Afghanistan Nicholas Haysom branding the figures "unacceptable".