M. R. Bishop, World Report News - 08 October 2015
Yesterday President Barack Obama called Doctors Without Borders to apologize for bombing their hospital in Kunduz, northeast Afghanistan, which according to the medical group is the only hospital of its kind in the region and was responsible for treating thousands of patients in need of trauma and emergency care. The attack killed twelve doctors, ten patients, three children, and left tens of thousands of people who need immediate medical attention without anywhere to go. MSF (Doctors Without Borders) reports that the United States bombed their hospital for 90 minutes in fifteen minute intervals, using precision targeting specifically to destroy the trauma and emergency wards. There was no combat in or around the hospital prior to the bombing and there does not appear to be any reason for the targeting of the hospital. The United States continued to bomb the hospital for thirty minutes even after MSF called in to Coalition forces that a civilian hospital was being targeted. MSF is calling for a formal legal investigation into the incident as a war crime, but the United States is refusing to look into the event any further.
Fact Sheet from MSF:
October 07, 2015From 2:08 a.m. until 3:15 a.m. on Saturday, October 3, the Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) trauma hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, was hit by a series of aerial bombing raids at approximately 15-minute intervals. The main hospital building, which housed the intensive care unit, emergency rooms, and physiotherapy ward, was hit with precision, repeatedly, during each aerial raid, while surrounding buildings were left mostly untouched.
Update, October 7, 2015"We received President Obama's apology today for the attack against our trauma hospital in Afghanistan. However, we reiterate our ask that the US government consent to an independent investigation led by the International Humanitarian Fact-Finding Commission to establish what happened in Kunduz, how it happened, and why it happened."
—Dr. Joanne Liu, MSF International President
Via MSF -
Emergency surgery and medical activities continued in one of the remaining parts of MSF's hospital in Kunduz in the immediate aftermath of the bombing yesterday morning. “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," says Christopher Stokes, General Director, Médecins Sans Frontières. "Relying only on an internal investigation by a party to the conflict would be wholly insufficient. 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.
Yesterday President Barack Obama called Doctors Without Borders to apologize for bombing their hospital in Kunduz, northeast Afghanistan, which according to the medical group is the only hospital of its kind in the region and was responsible for treating thousands of patients in need of trauma and emergency care. The attack killed twelve doctors, ten patients, three children, and left tens of thousands of people who need immediate medical attention without anywhere to go. MSF (Doctors Without Borders) reports that the United States bombed their hospital for 90 minutes in fifteen minute intervals, using precision targeting specifically to destroy the trauma and emergency wards. There was no combat in or around the hospital prior to the bombing and there does not appear to be any reason for the targeting of the hospital. The United States continued to bomb the hospital for thirty minutes even after MSF called in to Coalition forces that a civilian hospital was being targeted. MSF is calling for a formal legal investigation into the incident as a war crime, but the United States is refusing to look into the event any further.
Fact Sheet from MSF:
October 07, 2015From 2:08 a.m. until 3:15 a.m. on Saturday, October 3, the Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) trauma hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, was hit by a series of aerial bombing raids at approximately 15-minute intervals. The main hospital building, which housed the intensive care unit, emergency rooms, and physiotherapy ward, was hit with precision, repeatedly, during each aerial raid, while surrounding buildings were left mostly untouched.
Update, October 7, 2015"We received President Obama's apology today for the attack against our trauma hospital in Afghanistan. However, we reiterate our ask that the US government consent to an independent investigation led by the International Humanitarian Fact-Finding Commission to establish what happened in Kunduz, how it happened, and why it happened."
—Dr. Joanne Liu, MSF International President
- The total number of people killed in the attack is 22, including 12 MSF staff members and 10 patients. Thirty-seven people were injured, including 19 members of the MSF team.
- From September 28, when major fighting broke out in Kunduz city, until the time of the attack, MSF teams in Kunduz had treated 394 wounded people in the hospital.
- When the aerial attack occurred, there were 105 patients in the hospital and more than 80 MSF international and Afghan staff present.
- Our staff reported no armed combatants or fighting in the compoundprior to the airstrike.
- MSF’s facility in Kunduz was a fully functioning hospital that was full of patients and MSF staff.
- The attacks took place despite the fact that MSF had provided the GPS coordinates of the trauma hospital to Coalition and Afghan military and civilian officials as recently as Tuesday, 29 September. The attack continued for more than 30 minutes after we first informed US and Afghan military officials in Kabul and Washington that it was a hospital being hit.
- In the aftermath of the attack, the MSF team desperately tried to move wounded and ill patients out of harm’s way, and tried to save the lives of wounded colleagues and patients after setting up a makeshift operating theatre in an undamaged room.
- MSF’s hospital was the only facility of its kind in northeastern Afghanistan, providing free high level life- and limb-saving trauma care. In 2014, more than 22,000 patients received care at the hospital and more than 5900 surgeries were performed.
- The MSF hospital in Kunduz has been partially destroyed and is no longer operational. This leaves thousands of people without access to emergency medical care when they need it most.
- We demand an independent investigation by the International Humanitarian Fact-Finding Commission (IHFFC.org) to establish the facts of this event. The IHFFC is not a UN body; it was created in 1991 by Additional Protocol 1, article 90 of the Geneva Conventions that govern the rules of war. The IHFFC is set up for precisely this purpose: to independently investigate violations of humanitarian law, such as attacks on hospitals, which are protected in conflict zones.
- MSF started working in Afghanistan in 1980. In Kunduz, as in the rest of Afghanistan, Afghan and international staff work together to ensure the best quality of treatment. MSF supports the Ministry of Public Health in Ahmad Shah Baba hospital in eastern Kabul; Dasht-e-Barchi maternity center in western Kabul; and Boost hospital in Lashkar Gah, Helmand province. In Khost, in the east of the country, MSF operates a maternity hospital.
- As in all its projects, MSF doctors treat people according to their medical needs and do not make distinctions based on a patient’s ethnicity, religious beliefs or political affiliation.
- MSF relies only on private funding, and does not accept money from any government, for its work in Afghanistan.
Via MSF -
Emergency surgery and medical activities continued in one of the remaining parts of MSF's hospital in Kunduz in the immediate aftermath of the bombing yesterday morning. “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," says Christopher Stokes, General Director, Médecins Sans Frontières. "Relying only on an internal investigation by a party to the conflict would be wholly insufficient. 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.
