Wednesday, October 07, 2015

Doctors Without Borders pressing for independent investigation of hospital strike

Doctors Without Borders (MSF from their French name) is demanding an independent investigation of the deadly US bombing of one of their hospitals in Afghanistan this past weekend.

The Young Turks report on the hospital bombing, White House Fighting Independent Investigation Of Hospital Bombing 10/07/2015



Aljazeera America reports in Obama apologises to MSF and Afghans for Kunduz strike 10/07/2015:

US President Barack Obama called the head of medical charity Doctors without Borders (MSF) and the Afghan president to apologise for the US air strike that hit a hospital in the provincial capital of Kunduz.

Obama called President Ashraf Ghani and MSF President Joanne Liu on Wednesday to express regret for the loss of life in the attack that killed 22 people and injured 37 others.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Obama offered his condolences to the aid group's staff and assured that there would be a thorough and objective accounting of the facts. ...

In New York, Jason Cone, executive director of MSF in the US, called for the International Humanitarian Fact-Finding Commission to be activated for the first time since its 1991 creation under the Geneva Conventions. ...

Liu spoke of the chaos as the bombs fell for an hour.

"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," she said.

Marcy Wheeler (Obama’s Apology Fails to Convince Médecins Sans Frontières DOD’s Investigation Is Adequate Emptywheel 10/07/2015) has a question: "The US sure seems to want to avoid an independent investigation into this bombing. Why?"

The Doctors Without Borders group is right to demand an independent investigation. The US military, NATO and the Afghan government are virtually certain to officially conclude it was all a sad mistake.

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