{UAH} WHEN MSF PULLS OUT OF AFGHANISTAN YOU REALIZE HOW THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION HAS FUCKED UP THE SITUAQTION BEYOND REPAIR

Afghan hospital bombing: MSF labels US airstrike a war crime as it withdraws staff

Médecins Sans Frontières rejects Afghan officials’ claim that Taliban fighters were firing from hospital grounds and demands independent inquiry

The Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) hospital in Kunduz on Saturday morning after it was hit by an airstrike. Photograph: MSF/AFP/Getty Images

Sunday 4 October 2015 17.08 BST Last modified on Monday 5 October 2015 00.01 BST

Médecins Sans Frontières has pulled its staff out of the crisis-hit Afghan city of Kunduz after a US airstrike on its hospital, labelled a war crime by the group.

MSF says 22 people were killed by the bombing, which Afghan officials now claim was in retaliation for fire from Taliban fighters hiding in the hospital. The president, Barack Obama, announced on Sunday he was launching a full investigation into the circumstances.

In a robust rejection of the allegation that Taliban fighters were sheltering in the hospital grounds, the MSF general director, Christopher Stokes, said: “Not a single member of our staff reported any fighting inside the MSF hospital compound prior to the US airstrike on Saturday morning.

“The hospital was full of MSF staff, patients and their caretakers. It is 12 MSF staff members and 10 patients, including three children, who were killed in the attack.”

Stokes reiterated that the main hospital building was “repeatedly and very precisely hit during each aerial raid, while the rest of the compound was left mostly untouched”.

 

Facebook Twitter Pinterest

Guards at the gate of the hospital on Saturday. Photograph: Reuters

The charity denounced the US military investigation, which is expected to be concluded in a matter of days, as an inadequate response, and said an independent international investigation must take place.

“Under the clear presumption that a war crime has been committed, MSF demands that a full and transparent investigation into the event be conducted by an independent international body,” Stokes said. “Relying only on an internal investigation by a party to the conflict would be wholly insufficient.”

The charity said all critical patients had been referred to other health facilities and no MSF staff were now working in the hospital. Some have volunteered to work at other local clinics where some of the wounded have been taken.

Nato’s Afghan mission said it had directed a multinational investigation and anticipated a report in the coming days, in addition to the formal US military investigation. A spokeswoman said the US strike at 2.15am took place as insurgents were “directly firing upon US service members advising and assisting Afghan security forces in the city of Kunduz … the strike was conducted in the vicinity of a Doctors Without Borders medical facility.”

Obama said he would wait for the results of the US defence department inquiry before making a definitive judgment but expected “a full accounting of the facts and circumstances”.

Related: MSF hospital bombing 'violates international law'

“The hospital campus was 100% used by the Taliban,” Hamdullah Danishi, the acting governor of Kunduz, told the Washington Post earlier. “The hospital has a vast garden, and the Taliban were there. We tolerated their firing for some time.”

Taliban forces briefly seized control of the northern city after a furious battle, their most significant military success since the 2001 US invasion, but have since withdrawn after a heavy counterattack by Afghan government forces.

On Sunday afternoon, gun battles continued in three outer districts of the town. Danishi said he believed the Taliban forces had been bolstered by foreign recruits to the frontlines, many from central Asian countries.

Saad Mukhar, the Kunduz provincial public health director, told AFP the city was facing “a serious, drastic shortage of medicine”. “I’m afraid that if this situation continues, we will not be able to help our patients.”

 

 

EM

On the 49^th Parallel          

                 Thé Mulindwas Communication Group
"With Yoweri Museveni, Ssabassajja and Dr. Kiiza Besigye, Uganda is in anarchy"
                    Kuungana Mulindwa Mawasiliano Kikundi
"Pamoja na Yoweri Museveni, Ssabassajja na Dk. Kiiza Besigye, Uganda ni katika machafuko"