Obama apologizes to Doctors Without Borders, offers condolences over United States attack

US President Barack Obama on Wednesday called the president of Doctors Without Borders to apologize for the attack.

“If it is necessary to hold individuals accountable, that will be done”, White House spokesperson Josh Earnest said.

Under pressure from outraged humanitarian groups, President Barack Obama made phone calls on Wednesday to apologize for a USA air attack that killed 22 people at a Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan.

WikiLeaks has offered a reward of $50,000 for any footage or cockpit audio from the United States warplane that bombed a Doctors Without Borders hospital in the Afghan northern City of Kunduz. Gen. John Campbell, the top USA commander in Afghanistan, said Tuesday that U.S. Special Operations Forces “were in close vicinity” to the Doctors Without Borders hospital in Afghanistan and were “talking to the aircraft” that launched the airstrikes.

The USA military has said that Saturday’s airstrike came at the request of Afghan allies who asked for assistance after coming under fire.

Mr Obama also called Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and pledged to keep working closely with his government, Mr Earnest said.

“We can not rely on only internal military investigations by the U.S., North Atlantic Treaty Organisation and Afghan forces”, she said.

Mr Obama has also apologised to the president of Afghanistan.

The worldwide Humanitarian Fact-Finding Commission (IHFFC) was set up in 1991 under the Geneva Conventions.

The attack shocked the global community and angered aid groups worldwide.

MSF has demanded an international probe into Saturday’s strike, which killed 22 people. “Even war has rules”, said executive director Jason Cone.

Obama told the organization that an ongoing Pentagon investigation would “provide a transparent, thorough and objective accounting of the facts and circumstances of the incident”, he added.

The president’s apology was met only with an acknowledgement that the call had been “received”, as Dr. Liu reiterated her demand for an independent investigation led by the global Humanitarian Fact-Finding Commission. But he and other White House officials resisted further comment for several days, citing the need to let investigations continue.

US military officials say the strike was to help Afghan forces who were battling Taliban fighters in Kunduz, and reported being fired upon from the hospital. Ms Liu said the strike “was not just an attack on our hospital, it was an attack on the Geneva Conventions”.