Obama apologises for Kunduz attack, MSF demands independent probe
News, US October 8, 2015 1 Comment on Obama apologises for Kunduz attack, MSF demands independent probeUS president calls chief of Medicins Sans Frontieres to apologise for bombing of hospital in Afghanistan which killed 22 while MSF considers the bombing a war crime
WASHINGTON/GENEVA – U.S. President Barack Obama on Wednesday apologised to Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) for the deadly bombing of its hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, while the medical organization has demanded for an international commission to investigate what it calls a war crime.
President Obama called the president of MSF to apologise for the US bombing of a hospital in Afghanistan that left 22 people dead, including 12 MSF staff.
Obama also called Afghan President Ashraf Ghani to express his condolences.
Mr Obama’s apology came a day after the US military commander in Afghanistan acknowledged US responsibility for the bombing during a Senate hearing. “A hospital was mistakenly struck. We would never intentionally target a protected medical facility” Gen John Campbell said on Wednesday.
Josh Earnest, Mr Obama’s spokesman, said Mr Obama called Dr Joanne Liu, MSF’s international president, “to apologise and express his condolences for the MSF staff and patients who were killed and injured”.
“The president assured Dr Liu that the department of defence investigation currently underway would provide a transparent, thorough and objective accounting of the facts and circumstances of the incident,” Mr Earnest added.
Doctors Without Borders (or MSF) called for an independent international commission to investigate the deadly US bombing on Saturday of its facility in Kunduz, Afghanistan.
MSF demands independent international investigation
However, MSF has called for an independent humanitarian commission to be created under the Geneva Conventions in 1991 should be activated for the first time to handle the inquiry. Three investigations have already begun into Saturday’s air strike
“We received President Obama’s apology today for the attack against our trauma hospital in Afghanistan. However, we reiterate our ask that the US government consent to an independent investigation led by the International Humanitarian Fact-Finding Commission to establish what happened in Kunduz, how it happened, and why it happened” Dr. Joanne Liu, MSF International President said.
The medical aid group, known by its French language acronym MSF, mentioned in its statement: “In Kunduz our patients burned in their beds. MSF doctors, nurses, and other staff were killed as they worked. Our colleagues had to operate on each other.”
This “was not just an attack on our hospital, it was an attack on the Geneva Conventions. This cannot be tolerated”, the group’s international president, Joanne Liu, told reporters Wednesday.
Doctors Without Borders is appealing to the United States, Afghanistan and other 76 countries to launch an independent fact-finding mission under rules of the Geneva Conventions into the U.S. air strike on a hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan that killed at least 22 people.
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[…] Obama apologized for the attack. The U.S. military said the airstrike, requested by Afghan forces, was a mistake. The U.S. and […]