Stokes said that this utterly contradicts the initial attempts of the USA government to minimize the attack as “collateral damage”.
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Nine aid workers were among the 22 people killed when the airstrike hit the hospital. He noted that the Kunduz airstrike happened one day after a U.S. C-130 cargo plane crashed at an air base in northern Afghanistan, killing all six US crew members as well as five civilian passengers.
The United States president Barack Obama has promised an inquiry but global outrage has piled pressure on the White House for more transparency as military chiefs backtracked on their account of the incident.
“Their medical work in Afghanistan and elsewhere is vital and is appreciated by certainly all of us in the USA, but I think everyone around the world”, he said, adding that his office has been in contact with Doctors Without Borders over this weekend to emphasize that a full and transparent investigation will be conducted.
Doctors Without Borders, known internationally as Médecins Sans Frontières, issued a sharp statement Sunday saying it was “disgusted” by statements by Afghan authorities justifying the strike on the hospital and called for a transparent and independent investigation.
MSF general director Christopher Stokes also hit out at claims by Afghan officials that insurgents were using the hospital as a position to target Afghan forces and civilians.
In this photograph released by Doctors Without Borders on October 3, 2015.
Separately, the Afghan Interior Ministry said on Saturday that Taliban militants had entered the hospital compound and were firing on Afghan forces at the time of the attack.
The northern city of Kunduz has been the scene of fierce fighting since the Taliban captured it nearly a week ago. The charity’s official said MSF can not trust the U.S. military probe.
The top commander of USA and coalition forces in Afghanistan, General John F. Campbell, said that Afghan forces told U.S. forces on the ground that they needed air support.
However, the Taliban have purposeful chose a fight from within a heavily urbanised area, purposely placing civilians in harms way, he alleged. The humanitarian crisis in the city, which briefly fell to the Taliban last week before the government launched a counteroffensive, has been growing increasingly dire, with shops shuttered because of ongoing fighting and roads made impassable by mines planted by insurgents.
“This is different from initial reports, which indicated that US forces were threatened and that the airstrike was called on their behalf”, he noted.
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Elsewhere, a Taliban attack on the far western city of Maymana, capital of Faryab province bordering Turkmenistan, was repelled by Afghan forces on Monday.
