A hospital run by Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), known as Doctors Without Borders was hit today in air strike by the United States of America, on the Taliban in Afghanistan, killing nine MSF staff members, among other not-yet-totaled casualties including patients and patients’ family members.
The US has been conducting airstrikes in Kunduz, Afghanistan, since the Taliban wrested control of the city from Afghan forces last week.
A US military spokesman confirmed that the US launched an airstrike at 2:15 am local time (5:45 pm ET) today, and that “the strike may have resulted in collateral damage to a nearby medical facility.”
MSF volunteers described the statement as an understatement, saying: “MSF condemns in the strongest possible terms the horrific bombing of its hospital in Kunduz full of staff and patients.” All parties to the conflict, including in Kabul and Washington, were clearly informed of the precise location (GPS Coordinates) of the MSF facilities—hospital, guest-house, office and an outreach stabilization unit in Chardara (to the north-west of Kunduz). As MSF does in all conflict contexts, these precise locations were communicated to all parties on multiple occasions over the past months, including most recently on 29 September.
Two hospital employees, an aide who was wounded in the bombing and a nurse who emerged unscathed, said that there had been no active fighting nearby and no Taliban fighters in the hospital.
But a Kunduz police spokesman, Sayed Sarwar Hussaini, insisted that Taliban fighters had entered the hospital and were using it as a firing position.
The hospital treated the wounded from all sides of the conflict, a policy that has long irked the Afghan security forces.
Nearly 105 patients and 80 staff members—were inside the hospital at the time of the bombing. MSF said that it contacted military officials as soon as the bombing began, but that the bombing continued for at least 30 minutes after the calls were made. The military spokesman, Colonel. Brian Tribus, said the incident is “under investigation.” [myad]
