Thirty-three people are still missing five days after a catastrophic USA air strike on a hospital in the Afghan city of Kunduz that has prompted worldwide outrage, medical charity Doctors Without Borders said Thursday. The attack, which he called “mistaken”, killed 22 and wounded 37.
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Doctors without Borders is not letting up in its demand for an independent investigation into a series of USA airstrikes on its hospital in Kunduz.
“We’re calling on President Obama to consent to the fact-finding commission”.
The worldwide aid organization, however, has said that a U.S. probe into the incident will not suffice.
“We’re less concerned about who steps forward – that’s geopolitics, that’s not our concern”, said Cone.
A number of inquiries have been ordered – by the USA justice department, the Pentagon and North Atlantic Treaty Organisation.
“When we make a mistake”, Earnest said, “we’re honest about it. We own up to it, we apologize where necessary, as the president did in this case”.
Three investigations – by the United States military, North Atlantic Treaty Organisation and Afghan officials – are now underway, yet Ms Liu stressed the need for an external inquiry.
The airstrike hit MSF’s trauma centre, killing 12 staff and 10 patients and injuring 37 others.
MSF’s call for an investigation followed an admission by the USA that American special operations forces – not their Afghan allies – called in the deadly air strike on the MSF hospital in Kunduz, northern Afghanistan. “You could not miss it”, Liu said.
The IHFFC’s president, Gisela Perren-Klingler, told the Guardian she had received MSF’s request for an investigation on Tuesday night and had already been in touch with the USA and Afghan governments, offering the commission’s services.
The Geneva Conventions are a set of treaties regarding humanitarian issues of civilians and combatants in wartime.
The airstrike “was not just an attack on our hospital, it was an attack on the Geneva Conventions”.
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White House spokesman Josh Earnest confirmed the news on Wednesday in Washington. “If we don’t safeguard that medical space for us to do our activities, then it is impossible to work in other contexts like Syria, South Sudan, like Yemen”, she said. “There is no commitment to an independent investigation yet”.
