US President Barack Obama has apologized to Doctors Without Borders for an air strike that hit the organization’s clinic in Afghanistan.
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“We can not rely on an internal military investigation”, Doctors Without Bor-ders (MSF) chief Joanne Liu told reporters, insisting that an “international humanitarian fact-finding commission” should probe the bombing.
MSF has said that the air strike that levelled the hospital constituted a war crime, and has demanded an independent investigation.
Liu has called for an independent investigation into the tragedy but Earnest said that Obama is confident that the Pentagon’s investigation will be objective, thorough and get to the bottom of the matter, which he promised Liu.
“During the call, President Obama expressed regret over the tragic incident and offered his thoughts and prayers on behalf of the American people to the victims, their families, and loved ones”, a White House briefing read. Staff on the ground reported no fighting at the hospital or advanced warning ahead of the strike, Cone said.
“When we make a mistake, we are honest about it. We own up to it, we apologize where necessary, as the president did in this case”, he added. It’s protocol for United States forces to verify a target before firing, and MSF said that the organization had informed both the U.S. and Afghan authorities of its Global Positioning System coordinates.
“Today we say enough”. Yet airstrikes increasingly have become the go-to means not just for the US military, which tries to avoid civilian deaths, but also for others, including, recently, the Russians in Syria and Saudis in Yemen.
“If we let this go, we are basically giving a blank cheque to any countries at war”, Joanne Liu, MSF worldwide president, told a press conference in Geneva.
Staff for Doctors Without Borders, known officially as Médecins Sans Frontières, left the bombed hospital on Sunday. “One of our doctors died on an improvised operating table – an office desk – while his colleagues tried to save his life”, Liu said.
Earnest said the term “war crime” has a very specific legal meaning that so far looks unwarranted.
Meanwhile, a report said that the top USA commander in Afghanistan believes that American forces broke their rules of engagement in calling in an airstrike that pummelled a Kunduz hospital.
“On Saturday morning, our forces provided close air support to Afghan forces at their request”.
The bombing killed 12 medical personnel and 10 patients, including three children.
MSF said that the commission’s inquiry would gather facts and evidence from the United States, North Atlantic Treaty Organisation and Afghanistan, as well as testimony from MSF staff and patients who survived.
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The USA has said the bombing, which took place in the Afghan city of Kunduz, was a mistake and it was attempting to strike the Taliban.
