Amnesty International on Monday urged the UN to investigate potential "crimes against humanity" that occurred in the Philippines during President Rodrigo Duterte's bloody anti-drug crackdown.

In its report, 'They Just Kill,' the London-based rights watchdog urged the UN Human Rights Council to approve a resolution calling for an investigation into the Philippines, where there was now a "perilous normalisation" of illegal executions and police abuses.

A vote on the resolution by the 47-member council is expected later this week.

The exact number of deaths in President Duterte's violent war on drugs cannot be verified, but at least 6,000 have died in operations in which police said suspects were armed and had fought back since Duterte launched the campaign when he took office in mid-2016.

Non-government groups claim a much higher death toll, including many suspects killed by motorcycle-riding gunmen who human rights groups suspect were financed by police officers.

The 'bloodiest killing field'

Amnesty said Bulacan province north of the capital has become "the country's bloodiest killing field" after some officers involved in the crackdown were transferred there from Manila, which used to be the "epicentre of killings."

"Within marginalised communities, police continue to kill with total impunity, fuelling a pervasive climate of fear in cities, towns and neighbourhoods," Amnesty said in its study. "The reliance on violent and repressive policies continues to perpetuate human rights violations and abuses in the country."

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Amnesty said it investigated 20 drug-related incidents in which 27 people were killed across Bulacan from May 2018 to last April by interviewing witnesses, families of the dead, local officials and rights activists.

Amnesty concluded half of the incidents "appear to have been extrajudicial executions" based on witnesses' accounts and other information.

The others were unclear due to difficulty obtaining information about the killings "although their broad outlines were consistent with patterns of previous extrajudicial executions."

Poor labeled 'big-time' drug dealers

Amnesty wrote that families of the deceased said the victims had struggled to earn a living but were accused of being "big time" drug dealers.

Police officers justified the deaths by claiming that suspects fought back during so-called "buy-bust" operations, where undercover agents posed as drug buyers. Amnesty said it doubted the police reports, saying they did not "meet the feeblest standards of credibility."

Amnesty also questioned the legitimacy and accuracy of drug "watch lists," which it said contain the names of drug suspects targeted in police raids.

Amnesty cited accounts from suspects' relatives and witnesses who said some suspects who police claimed fired back were too poor to buy a gun, while others died after police forcibly broke into homes and opened fire then later claimed the suspects fought back after sensing they were being entrapped in police "buy-bust" transactions.

This article was originally published by Deutsche Welle.

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