Afghan hospital bombing was not a ‘mistake’, Doctors Without Borders say

This video says about itself:

“Doctors Without Borders“: In a bombed hospital in Kunduz burned children alive (06.10.15)

Among those killed in the shelling of the hospital of the international organization “Doctors without Borders» (MSF) in the Afghan Kunduz were children who were burned alive during the air strike, said a member of the organization’s leadership, the president of the operations center for MSF in Brussels Maini Nicholas. “On Saturday morning [the United States air force] began bombing the hospital by air. It lasted more than an hour. There have been several approaches, several planes flew and shot at the hospital. The shelling affected the main building, where the intensive care unit, ambulance and physiotherapy, which was a lot of employees [were hit] ” she said, reports RIA Novosti.

According to the organization, the air bombardment of the hospital started early on Saturday morning. As a result of falling shells in the central building of the hospital a fire started.

“The staff ran out to the street when the building caught fire. Later, we sadly noted that 10 patients died. Six of them were in the intensive care unit and could not leave the building. Some of them were burned alive in their beds, and among them were children. Also killed 12 employees of “Doctors without Borders”. A total of 22 dead and 37 wounded, “she said.

“We do not know the whereabouts of the staff and whether they are alive … A few people left (Kunduz), but we do not know where they are. Because the situation there – it’s chaos” she said.

From daily The Morning Star in Britain:

Afghanistan: US’s hospital attack was no ‘error’ – MSF

Monday 19th october 2015

Charity chief slams deliberate and deadly strafing by gunship

DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS (MSF) has rejected US claims that its attack on an Afghan hospital was made in error.

MSF general director Christopher Stokes said in an Associated Press interview that the “extensive, quite precise destruction” of the bombing raid casts doubt on US military assertions.

Mr Stokes said the attack on October 3 that killed 22 patients and staff should be investigated as a possible war crime.

In the interview, held outside the burnt-out main hospital building in Kunduz on Friday, Mr Stokes said MSF wanted a “clear explanation because all indications point to a grave breach of international humanitarian law and therefore a war crime.

“The hospital was repeatedly hit both at the front and the rear and extensively destroyed and damaged, even though we have provided all the co-ordinates and all the right information to all the parties in the conflict.

“The extensive, quite precise destruction of this hospital … doesn’t indicate a mistake. The hospital was repeatedly hit,” he said.

MSF has said the bombing went on for more than an hour despite calls to Afghan, US and Nato forces. The US gunship made five separate strafing runs in that time.

The attack by the AC-130 — the kind of gunship used in the brutal US war in Vietnam — was ordered as Afghan national army troops were fighting to recapture Kunduz from the Taliban.

…

Associated Press has reported that US special operations analysts were scrutinising the hospital days before it was destroyed as they believed it was being used by a Pakistani operative to co-ordinate Taliban activity.

MSF has denied there were any armed Taliban fighters on the hospital grounds at the time of the attack.

“The compound was not entered by Taliban soldiers with weapons,” Mr Stokes said.

“What we have understood from our staff and guards is that there was very strong, very good control of what was happening in and around the compound and they reported no firing in the hours preceding the destruction of the hospital.”