Charity quits Afghan city after air raid
Medics close only hospital in area
A LEADING medical charity yesterday withdrew staff from an Afghan city after an apparent US bombing raid on one of its hospitals.
The UN called the attack a potential ‘war crime’.
Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) said 19 people were killed i n the raid on the medical facility in Kunduz in North-Eastern Afghanistan on Saturday.
Victims included patients who burned to death in their beds as the bombardment continued even after the US and Afghan authorities were told the hospital had been hit.
The closure of the MSF hospital, the only facility in the
‘May amount to a war crime’
region that can treat serious war i njuries, could have a devastating impact on local civilians.
The air raid came five days after Taliban fighters seized control of Kunduz, an important strategic city, in their most spectacular victory since being toppled from power by the USled coalition in 2001.
MSF – known in English as Doctors Without Borders – condemned the bombings as ‘ abhorrent and a grave violation of international law’.
It demanded answers from Nato forces in Afghanistan.
The charity said Afghan and Coalition troops were fully aware of the exact location of the hospital, having been given GPS co-ordinates of a facility that had been providing care for four years. It added that, despite frantic calls to military officials in Kabul and Washington, the main building housing the intensive care unit and emergency rooms was ‘repeatedly, very precisely’ hit almost every 15 minutes for more than an hour.
The charity said that 105 patients and their families, as well as more than 80 international and local MSF staff, were in the hospital at the time of the bombing.
Twelve staff members and at least seven patients, among them three children, were killed, while 37 people were injured.
President Barack Obama offered his ‘deepest condolences’ over what he called a ‘tragic incident’.
Nato earlier conceded that US f orces may have been behind the bombing, after its forces launched a strike which they said was i ntended to target militants.
The incident has renewed concerns about the use of US air strikes in Afghanistan, a deeply contentious issue in the 14- year campaign against Taliban insurgents.
UN human rights chief Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein called for a full and transparent probe, saying: ‘An air strike on a hospital may amount to a war crime.
‘This event is utterly tragic, inexcusable and possibly even criminal.’
MSF’s withdrawal came as Kunduz grappled with a humanitarian crisis, with thousands of civilians caught in the crossfire between government forces and insurgents.
At least 60 people are known to have died and 400 to have been wounded i n the past week’s fighting.
The Taliban’s offensive in Kunduz, their biggest tactical success since 2001, marked a major blow for Afghanistan’s Western-trained forces.
Afghan forces, backed up by their Nato allies, now claim to have wrestled back control of the city.