AT LEAST 22,000 civilians have been killed in US-led air strikes in Africa and the Middle East in the past 20 years, according to a new report released on Monday.

Conflict monitor Airwars, which issued the figures ahead of the anniversary of the September 11 attacks in New York, said the actual death toll could be as high as 48,000.

The numbers include those killed in the occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq along with US-led bombing campaigns in Libya, Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen.

The deadliest year was 2003 when at least 5,529 civilians were reported as victims of US air strikes, mostly during its occupation of Iraq.

“For much of the last 20 years people living in Washington or New York could have been forgiven for forgetting their country was at war,” Airwars spokesman Joe Dyke said.

“Whether a drone strike in a Yemeni village or a military base in rural Afghanistan it often felt far removed, almost another world, but that isn’t how it felt for those millions of people living in those conflicts.”

The US does not publish estimates for the number of civilians killed and has been criticised for classifying all males in war zones “enemy combatants” in order to justify the deaths.

Research from Brown University found more than 387,000 civilians have been killed since the war on terror was announced in 2001 with around 38 million people displaced.

Ten people from one family including six children were killed in a US drone strike in Afghanistan last week with Washington saying that it was targeting jihadists that planned an attack on Kabul airport.

According to Save the Children, nearly 33,000 youngsters were killed or maimed during the US occupation of Afghanistan, not including those who died from disease or hunger.

The US is currently conducting what it describes as “counter-terror activities” in at least 85 countries.