In the face of mounting pressure from global aid groups, US President Barack Obama apologized to the MSF chief, admitting that the strike was a mistake.
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President Barack Obama apologized Wednesday to the president of Doctors Without Borders over the deadly USA bombing of a field hospital in Afghanistan, a spokesman said, just a day after the White House stopped short of an apology by citing a lack of information about what led to the attack.
The USA airstrikes that destroyed a hospital belonging to Doctors Without Borders in the northern Afghan city of Kunduz was “a deliberate attack”, a top official charged on Thursday.
There are already investigations by the Defense Department, North Atlantic Treaty Organisation and a joint U.S.-Afghan group, which the Obama administration says is enough.
Gen. Campbell said Tuesday that the “entire force” has to be re-trained and review the rules of engagement that the U.S. military operates under, saying that it was ordered “to prevent any future incidences of this nature”.
The global Humanitarian Fact-Finding Commission, which was established by the Additional Protocols of the Geneva Conventions, is the only permanent body set up specifically to investigate violations of worldwide humanitarian law.
“We would never intentionally target a protected medical facility”, Gen Campbell said, insisting the buildings were “mistakenly struck”. “The tool exists and it is time it is activated”.
However, the officials of the White House said that the investigation that is now underway, looking into the issue, by the Department of Defense will be “transparent, thorough and objective accounting of the facts”. The medical charity’s president, Joanne Liu, said the bombing, which killed 10 patients and 12 staff, was an attack on the very conventions meant to govern the conduct of war. MSF believe that the strike was a war crime and approached the USA, Afghanistan and other nations with a request to investigate the matter.
Only then would MSF consider whether to bring criminal charges for loss of life and partial destruction of its trauma hospital, which has left tens of thousands of Afghans without access to healthcare, it said.
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The United States has claimed the bombing was a mistake and the strike was meant to hit Taliban forces.
