Doctors Without Borders Says U.S. Guilty Of War Crimes
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The bombing of a hospital in Afghanistan is a war crime by the United States says Doctors Without Borders, known internationally as Médecins Sans Frontières.
MSF says it a US airstrike was to blame for the bombing that killed 22 people, which Afghan officials now claim was in retaliation for fire from Taliban fighters hiding in the hospital. 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 reinterated the main hospital building was “repeatedly and very precisely hit during each aerial raid, while the rest of the compound was left mostly untouched”.
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.”
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