US purpose of Kunduz hospital attack was to kill and destroy: MSF Report
Asia-Pacific, News, US November 5, 2015 No Comments on US purpose of Kunduz hospital attack was to kill and destroy: MSF ReportU.S. plane shot victims fleeing Doctors Without Borders Hospital in Afghanistan: Charity
The international humanitarian group Doctors Without Borders has released an internal review of the U.S. attack on its hospital in northern Afghanistan which shows no reason why the facility should have come under attack.
The organization, also known as Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), released a report Thursday citing accounts that some people were shot as they tried to escape the main building. The report says there were no armed combatants fighting within or from the hospital grounds.
“Hospitals have protected status under the rules of war. And yet in the early hours of 3 October, the MSF hospital in Kunduz came under relentless and brutal aerial attack by US forces” reads the report.
The report revealed new insight into what the humanitarian group says happened on the night of Oct. 3, when U.S. airstrikes mistakenly killed 30 MSF hospital staff and patients.
“Many staff describe seeing people being shot, most likely from the plane, as people tried to flee the main hospital building that was being hit with each airstrike,” reads the report by MSF. “Some accounts mention shooting that appears to follow the movement of people on the run.”
“The hospital was razed to the ground after a wave of attack from the air. We lost our ability to treat patients at a time when we were needed the most. Thirty of our patients and medical staff died. Some of them lost their limbs and were decapitated in the explosions. Others were shot by the circling gunship while fleeing the burning building. We were forced to leave patients to die on the operating table and others burning in their ICU beds.
At the time of the airstrike, the operating theatres were in use – there were patients being attended to by surgeons and anaesthetists. (MSF Photo)
The view from inside the hospital is that this attack was conducted with a purpose to kill and destroy.
“What we lack is the view from outside the hospital – what happened within the military chains of command” implores the report.
The bombing lasted for more than an hour, during which time “patients burned in their beds, medical staff were decapitated and lost limbs, and others were shot by the circling AC130 gunship while fleeing the burning building,” the report says.
Before and After view of MSF Trauma Centre In Kunduz, Afghanistan (Photos by MSF. Edited by IRIA)
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