UN: US bombing of Afghan hospital a war crime
KABUL—President Barack Obama called for a full investigation into an apparent US air strike on an Afghan hospital that killed 19 people, a bombing which the United Nations said could amount to a war crime.
Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said patients burned to death in their beds during a raid that continued for more than an hour early Saturday, even after US and Afghan authorities were informed the hospital had been hit.
“Twelve staff members and at least seven patients, including three children, were killed; 37 people were injured,” the charity said. “This attack is abhorrent and a grave violation of international law.”
The air raid came days after Taliban fighters seized control of the strategic northern city of Kunduz.
Afghan forces, backed-up by their North Atlantic Treaty Organization (Nato) allies, claimed to have wrestled back control of the city.
But the defense ministry in Kabul said “a group of armed terrorists ... were using the hospital building as a position to target Afghan forces and civilians.”
MSF denied any combatants were in the hospital.
The charity said that despite frantic calls to military officials in Kabul and Washington, the main building housing the intensive care unit and emergency rooms were “repeatedly, very precisely” hit almost every 15 minutes for more than an hour.
Obama offered his “deepest condolences” for what he called a “tragic incident.”
The Department of Defense “has launched a full investigation and we will await the results of that inquiry before making a definitive judgement as to the circumstances of this tragedy,” Obama said in a statement.
Nato earlier conceded that US forces could have been behind the bombing, after its forces launched a strike which they said was intended to target militants.
UN rights chief Zeid Ra’ad al Hussein called for a full and transparent probe, noting: “an air strike on a hospital may amount to a war crime.”
The attack “is utterly tragic, inexcusable and possibly even criminal,” he said.