“The report provides a preliminary figure of 848 civilian casualties (289 deaths and 559 injured) that occurred in Kunduz province between 28 September and 13 October”, said the report.
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The UNAMA pointed out that the “vast majority” of the casualties were due to fighting on the ground and could not be attributed exclusively to one party to the conflict.
The revised toll came after what the charity called a methodical review of MSF records and family claims, interviews with staff, patients and family members, as well as cross-checking with other hospitals in Afghanistan where MSF patients were referred post-attack.
In addition, more human remains have been discovered in the hospital rubble, the charity said.
During the counter-offensive to retake Kunduz, 30 people were killed and 37 wounded on October 3 in an accidental airstrike by the global military coalition on a hospital run by the medical charity Doctors Without Borders.
The U.N. report went on to say that the aftermath of the Taliban’s attack on the city “led to a loss of protection of the most basic human rights, including the rights to life and security of person”.
A handout provided by Medecins Sans Frontieres shows fire in a hospital in Kunduz after the bombings in Kunduz, Afghanistan on October 3.
An investigation conducted by American military officials, the full results of which have yet to be released, concluded that the strike was “a tragic but avoidable accident” caused by “avoidable human error, compounded by process and equipment failures”.
Doctors Without Borders has demanded an worldwide investigation of the airstrikes that would be carried out under the Geneva Conventions, asserting that the military’s own investigation would inevitably be biased and lack credibility. However, such an investigation could take place only if both Afghanistan and the United States consented to it.
MSF on Wednesday delivered a petition signed by 547,000 people to the White House demanding an independent investigation.
Government security forces were also accused of executing some Taliban prisoners and mutilating bodies by dragging them behind trucks, the United Nations said.
The UNAMA further demanded an independent probe into the US’s aerial attack on the hospital, which it said may amount to a war crime if it is proved to be a deliberate strike.
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Injured Doctors Without Borders staff are seen after explosions near their hospital in the northern Afghan city of Kunduz, Saturday, Oct. 3. Even with the U.N.’s lower figures, more than a tenth of all civilians killed in Kunduz during that period of fighting died in the hospital attack.
