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The UN-linked International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) on Thursday, March 2 condemned the use of extrajudicial killings in the Philippines, where President Rodrigo Duterte's much-criticised war on drugs has claimed more than 6,500 lives.
Duterte was elected in 2016 after promising to eradicate drugs in society by killing tens of thousands of people. Since June, police have reported killing more than 2,550 people while more than 4,000 others have died in unexplained circumstances. (IN NUMBERS: The Philippines' war on drugs)
In a new annual report, the INCB said that "extrajudicial action, purportedly taken in pursuit of drug control objectives, is fundamentally contrary to the provisions and objectives" of international drug conventions.
In August the INCB, an independent quasi-judicial body monitoring the implementation of UN drugs conventions, had already called on the Philippines government to ensure an "immediate stop" to the killings.
The new annual report condemned the practice "in the strongest possible terms", calling it a "serious violation of human rights" and an "affront to the most basic standards of human dignity."
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