Obama apologises to MSF for air strike on hospital -White House

When the U.S. air strike began at 2:15 am local time, Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan was operating as normal, treating trauma patients from the local area.

President Barack Obama speaks in the East Room of the White House in Washington, Wednesday, October 7, 2015.

A dozen MSF staffers and 10 patients were killed in the hospital air strike amid fighting between government forces and Taliban rebels in the north-eastern city. “We underlined the importance of a full and thorough and transparent investigation”, Stoltenberg told a press conference.

Today, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said the president was saddened by the incident and still waiting for a complete explanation from the Department of Defense.

The White House said Obama also called Afghan President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani to express his condolences for the Afghan civilians killed and injured in the bombing.

“If we don’t safeguard that medical space for us to do our activities, then it is impossible to work in other contexts like Syria, South Sudan, like Yemen”, she said.

MSF said statements from the Afghan and U.S. forces implied they worked together to deliberately target the hospital, which amounts to an admission of a war crime.

Doctors Without Borders also said it was treating fighters from both sides there.

When asked point-blank if he would oppose an independent United Nations investigation into the hospital bombing, Gen. Campbell did not give a direct yes or no answer but rather affirmed his trust in the internal investigation process now underway. The Geneva Conventions, which are not party to the conflict during armed conflict or injury, foresees the protection of persons and prisoners lose the chance to be taken over by hand.

Earnest said the USA “mistakenly struck” the hospital.

In Brussels, U.S. Ambassador to North Atlantic Treaty Organisation Douglas Lute said the United States was open to working closely with MSF, but added: “I’m not sure where we’ll go in terms of any further investigations”.

MSF says the co-ordinates of the hospital were well-known and its bombing could not have been a mistake.

Dr. Joanne Liu, the global president of Doctors Without Borders, repeated her demand for an independent investigation led by the worldwide Humanitarian Fact-Finding Commission to “establish what happened in Kunduz, how it happened, and why it happened”.