MSF posts grim details from Afghan hospital strike

“At least 30 MSF staff and patients were killed”.

The bombing lasted for more than an hour, during which time “patients burned in their beds, medical staff were decapitated and lost limbs, and others were shot by the circling AC130 gunship while fleeing the burning building”, the report says.

Ultimately, after changing its story a few times, the USA military said that the airstrike was called by us special operations forces to protect Afghan forces who were taking fire from the Taliban.

Defense Secretary Ash Carter promised to investigate the attack on the hospital and President Barack Obama called Joanne Liu, the head of MSF to apologize for the airstrike.

Christopher Stokes, MSF general director, has condemned reports indicating that the attack on the hospital could be justified because Taliban members were being treated there, saying the organization was “disgusted” by those claims. He said a “no weapons” policy was upheld at the hospital in the northern city of Kunduz. The organization’s policy to provide medical care to all victims of armed conflict regardless of their political allegiances.

US officials maintain the strike was a mistake based on false intelligence reports that the hospital was being used as a Taliban command and control center. The militants held Kunduz for three days before being driven back by a government counteroffensive.

The organization’s findings contradict statements made by US military officials in the wake of the October 3 attack. The account is horrifying and makes a good case for the attack being a purposeful act conducted by the United States because approximately half of the patients recovering in the hospital were Taliban, with a few indication that two may have been high-ranking members.

MSF has said that it provided information about its location to USA forces when fighting broke out in Kunduz in September.

“The attack on our hospital in Kunduz destroyed our ability to treat patients at a time when we were needed the most”, MSF stated in this preliminary report, the conclusions of which could differ greatly from the investigation being carried out by US.

Stokes said the official’s question “seems to suggest they believed there were a group of Taliban holed up that weren’t only patients in the hospital”.

“…[MSF] continued to push for an independent investigation into one of the deadliest civilian casualty incidents stemming from a coalition action in the Afghan conflict”.