Death toll in airstrike on hospital may rise

24 staff members unaccounted for, despite a hotline.

The death toll may increase significantly from an airstrike that devastated the Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, officials from the organization said Thursday, as the search continued for 24 staff members, many of them feared to be dead.

The deaths of 12 hospital staff members and 10 patients have been confirmed in the American airstrike, with an additional 37 people wounded. Five days after the Oct. 3 attack, Doctors Without Borders has still been unable to find the 24 staff members, despite having a hotline for them to call.

“We are worried,” said Guilhem Molinie, the Doctors Without Borders representative in Afghanistan.

“We haven’t stopped looking for them, and we’re not the only ones. Their families want to know where they are, too. We fear that some of them may be dead.”

Molinie said that there might still be more bodies in the heavily damaged main building of the hospital but that the group had not been able to return to inspect it because of security concerns.

New details of the attack emerged Thursday at a news conference the organization held in Kabul, the capital, as its officials repeated their call for an independent, international investigation.

The U.S. warplane that attacked the hospital, believed to be an AC-130 gunship supporting American Special Operations or Special Forces troops, made five bombing runs, spaced about 15 minutes apart, beginning at 2:08 a.m. Saturday, Doctors Without Borders officials said, and the attack continued for an hour and 15 minutes.

Earlier reports from the group had said the bombing went on for 30 minutes, but the officials said the half-hour referred to the time the bombing continued after Doctors Without Borders had reached Americans in Kabul and Washington to tell them the hospital was under aerial attack.

Each of the five air attacks, described as strafing runs — with the aircraft firing rapidly with munitions that caused explosions inside the building — specifically targeted the main hospital building, which housed the emergency room, intensive care unit, blood lab and X-ray area, the group said.

“It was hit with preci- sion repeatedly while surrounding buildings were left untouched,” Molinie said.

Most of the victims were in the emergency room, intensive care unit and blood lab. Patients in nearby wards, some of them no more than 10 yards from the main building, were untouched, according to Doctors Without Borders, also known by its French name, Medecins Sans Frontieres.

There was no active ground combat in the vicinity of the hospital at the time of the attack, as far as officials inside the hospital could tell, Molinie said.