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The number of civilians killed in Afghanistan in the first half of this year has increased by 1 percent, compared to the same period last year, according to a report released Sunday by the United Nations.

The U.N. mission in Afghanistan said the number — 1,692 killed in violence — is the highest 6-month death toll since the systematic documentation of civilian casualties started in 2009.

In its report, UNAMA said 3,430 Afghan civilians were wounded in the January-June period. The killed and wounded add up to a total of 5,122 civilian casualties, which is a 3 percent overall decrease from the first six months of 2017.

The U.N. mission renewed its call on parties to the conflict to increase efforts to protect the civilian population and work toward reaching a peaceful settlement.

Sunday’s report and others like it reflect the grim reality of Afghanistan today.

Since the U.S. and NATO forces formally concluded their combat mission at the end of 2014, a resurgent Taliban have stepped up their attacks across the country and an Islamic State affiliate has also emerged to launch horrific high-profile attacks that have claimed the lives of scores of civilians.

The U.N. report also cited a lull in June, when the Taliban accepted a three-day cease-fire over the Eid al-Fitr holiday that caps the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan. The insurgents later rejected a subsequent call by President Ashraf Ghani to extend it.

Ghani has repeatedly extended calls to the Taliban for peace talks but they have rejected them outright. Speaking at a press conference Sunday in Kabul, Ghani said the NATO summit last week in Brussels fully backed his government’s efforts and peace initiatives.

“The brief cease-fire demonstrated that the fighting can be stopped and that Afghan civilians no longer need to bear the brunt of the war,” the report quoted Tadamichi Yamamoto, the U.N. Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Afghanistan.

“We urge parties to seize all opportunities to find a peaceful settlement – this is the best way that they can protect all civilians,” added Yamamoto, who is also head of UNAMA.

According to the report, 157 women were among those killed and 387 were wounded in the January-June period, the report said. The mission also recorded a total of 1,355 child casualties, with 363 deaths and 992 children wounded in the first six months of the year.

“UNAMA continued to document the toxic consequences of this conflict, with Afghan boys and girls killed, maimed, sexually assaulted, abused, recruited and used by parties to the conflict,” said Danielle Bell, mission’s human rights chief.

The violence, she added, “continued to erode the rights of children to education, health-care, freedom of movement and other fundamental rights, as well as family life, playing outdoors and simply enjoying a childhood free of the brutal effects of war.”

The use of improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, remained the leading cause of civilian casualties, according to the report. The combined use of suicide and non-suicide bombings caused nearly half of all civilian casualties.

The report attributed just over a half — or 52 percent — of civilian casualties from suicide and complex attacks in the first half of the year to the Islamic State group, mainly in the capital of Kabul and the eastern Nangarhar province, where IS has gained a foothold.

On Thursday, at least 10 civilians were killed in Nangarhar’s Khogyani district after the army launched an operation against insurgents there, said Ajmal Omar, a member of the provincial council. The dead were mostly shopkeepers caught in the cross-fire.

The Taliban were responsible for 40 percent while the remainder were attributed to unidentified anti-government elements, the report said.

A suicide bomber struck outside a government ministry in the Afghan capital on Monday, killing 12 people and wounding 31 days before the start of a holiday cease-fire with the Taliban.

Kabul police spokesman Hashmat Stanekzai says a suicide bomber on foot struck outside the Rural Rehabilitation and Development Ministry as employees were leaving work. Public Health Ministry spokesman Wahid Majroh confirmed the toll

No one immediately claimed the attack, but the Taliban and an Islamic State affiliate regularly strike government targets in the capital and elsewhere.

Elsewhere in Afghanistan, a roadside bomb struck a microbus in eastern the eastern Ghazni province on Monday, killing six people. Arif Noori, a spokesman for the governor of the Ghazni province, said women and children were among those killed in the blast, which also wounded three people.

He said the bomb was planted by the Taliban. The insurgents mostly target security forces and government officials, but their roadside bombs often kill civilians.

Elsewhere in Ghazni, at least three local police and 10 Taliban fighters were killed in clashes, Noori said.

In the northern Kunduz province, the Taliban attacked a joint army and police checkpoint, killing at least 15 Afghan security forces, said Mohammad Yusouf Ayubi, head of the provincial council.

In the eastern Nangarhar province, a suicide bomber wounded at least 10 civilians when he struck near the education department in the provincial capital of Jalalabad, said Attahullah Khogyani, spokesman for the governor.

He said three other suicide bombers were shot and killed by security forces as they tried to enter the building. He said a vehicle filled with explosives was found near the scene of the attack.

In a separate attack in the same province, a sticky bomb wounded 14 civilians in the Chaparhar district, according to hospital spokesman Inamullah Miakhail. Gen. Ghulam Sanayee Stanekzai, provincial police chief in Nangarhar, said the bomb went off as people were shopping in a market.

No one claimed either attack. Both the Taliban and IS are active in eastern Afghanistan, especially Nangarhar.

Nearly half of Afghanistan’s children are not attending school because of war, poverty and other factors, a new report showed Sunday.

The study, released by the Education Ministry and the U.N. children’s agency, said that 3.7 million, or 44 percent, of all school-age children are not attending school. It marks the first time since the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 that the rate of attendance has declined, following years of steady gains in education for boys as well as girls, who were banned from attending school under the Taliban.

The survey says girls account for 60 percent of those being denied an education.

“Business as usual is not an option for Afghanistan if we are to fulfil the right to education for every child,” Adele Khodr, UNICEF’s Afghanistan representative, said in a statement. “When children are not in school, they are at an increased danger of abuse, exploitation and recruitment.”

The Taliban have seized several districts across the country in recent years, as the U.S.-backed government has struggled to combat the insurgency. A long-running financial crisis, exacerbated by widespread corruption, has further hindered government efforts to expand access to education.

Widespread poverty forces many families to push their daughters into early marriages, often with much older men. The legal age for marriage in Afghanistan is 18, but the law is poorly enforced, particularly in conservative, rural areas.

Girls’ education is still frowned upon in much of the conservative Muslim country, and is banned in the steadily expanding areas controlled by the Taliban.

Officials say Afghan forces killed nine people, mostly civilians, by mistake during a raid on a house in eastern Nangarhar province.

Provincial governor Hayatullah Hayat says Tuesday that eight other civilians were wounded in the raid late Monday night in Chaparhar district.

Hayat said a local police commander was among the dead.

He said gunfire had been coming from the house that was raided, but the casualties were identified as mostly civilians once the operation ended.

An investigation was being conducted into how the operation resulted in civilian casualties.

Inamullah Miakhail, a spokesman for the hospital in Nangarhar, also confirmed that nine dead bodies were brought to the hospital from the raid.

Both Taliban and the Islamic States group are active in eastern Afghanistan.