The Doctors Without Borders hospital is seen in flames, after explosions in the northern Afghan city of Kunduz
Confusion reigned in the wake of the deadly bombing of a hospital compound in the northern Afghan city of Kunduz that killed at least 19 people and wounded dozens more. It remains unclear exactly who bombed the hospital run by Doctors Without Borders and the international medical charity has demanded an investigation into the incident.
Doctors Without Borders said that “all indications” pointed to the international military coalition as responsible for the bombing and called for an independent investigation. U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter said an inquiry was underway into whether the carnage at the clinic was caused by an airstrike from an American fighter jet, while Afghan officials said helicopter gunships had returned fire from Taliban fighters hiding in the compound.
Afghan forces backed by U.S. airstrikes have been battling the Taliban street-by-street in Kunduz since Thursday to dislodge insurgents who seized the strategic city three days earlier in their biggest foray into a major urban area since the U.S.-led invasion of 2001. The insurgents have had the city encircled for months, and overran it in a surprise assault that embarrassed the U.S.-backed Afghan government and called into question the competence of the U.S.-funded Afghan armed forces.
Army Col. Brian Tribus, a spokesman for American forces in Afghanistan, said a U.S. airstrike on Kunduz at 2:15 a.m. “may have resulted in collateral damage to a nearby medical facility” and that the incident was under investigation. He said it was the 12th U.S. airstrike “in the Kunduz vicinity” since Tuesday.
Doctors Without Borders, also known by the French acronym MSF, said its trauma center “was hit several times during sustained bombing and was very badly damaged.” At the time, the hospital had 105 patients and their caretakers, and more than 80 international and Afghan staff, it said.
The medical group did not say whether insurgents were present inside the compound as the Afghan Ministry of Defense claimed, and it was not immediately clear whether the staffers were killed by the Taliban or Afghan or U.S. forces. Doctors Without Borders said another 30 people were still missing after the incident.
The dead included 12 staffers and seven patients from the intensive care unit, among them three children, it said. A total of 37 people were injured, including 19 staff members, and 18 patients and caretakers. Five of the injured staff members were in critical condition.
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani expressed his sorrow and said he and the commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, U.S. Army Gen. John Campbell, had “agreed to launch a joint and thorough investigation.”
President Barack Obama said that he expected a full accounting of the circumstances surrounding the bombing, and that he would wait for those results before making a judgment. He said the U.S. would continue working with Afghanistan’s government and its overseas partners to promote security in Afghanistan. AP
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