President Obama apologises for US air strike that killed 12 aid workers and 10 patients at Kunduz hospital
Obama
President Obama apologises for US air strike that killed 12 aid workers and 10 patients at Kunduz hospital
Médecins Sans Frontières has called for an independent investigation in to the attack as President Obama apologised for what The White House has described as a 'terrible, tragic accident' Reuters
Médecins Sans Frontières has called for an independent investigation in to the attack as President Obama apologised for what The White House has described as a 'terrible, tragic accident' Reuters
Nearly five days after a US air strike killed 22 people at a hospital in Afghanistan, US President Barack Obama has apologised to the medical aid charity Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) for what the White House described as a “terrible, tragic accident”.
MSF has called for an independent investigation into the attack on its hospital in Kunduz, to determine whether a war crime occurred, as Taliban forces and Nato-backed Afghan government troops continue to battle for control of the strategic northern city.
White House press Secretary Josh Earnest said that Mr Obama had also called Afghanistan’s president Ashraf Ghani to offer his condolences. The airstrike killed 12 MSF staffers and 10 patients, including three children; several victims were burned alive in their beds.
The Pentagon has already promised its own investigation into the deadly incident but, speaking at a press conference in Geneva, MSF international president Joanne Liu said the organisation “cannot rely on only internal military investigations by the US, Nato and Afghan forces.”
Citing the inconsistencies in the US and Afghan accounts of Saturday’s air strike, Ms Liu called for a fact-finding mission to Afghanistan by the International Humanitarian Fact-Finding Commission, an independent organisation based in Switzerland and made up of officials, legal, experts and doctors from nine European nations including the UK. Ms Liu said the strike “was not just an attack on our hospital, it was an attack on the Geneva Conventions. This cannot be tolerated.”
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