Doctors group: Don't brush aside Afghan hospital attack as 'mistake'
The US airstrike on the Afghan hospital in which 22 people were killed has prompted Doctors Without Borders to call for an investigation into possible war crimes.
The US airstrike on the Afghan hospital in which 22 people were killed has prompted Doctors Without Borders to call for an investigation into possible war crimes.
International aid group Doctors Without Borders has called for an independent investigation into possible war crimes following the US airstrike on an Afghan hospital that left 22 people dead last weekend.
鈥淚t is unacceptable that the bombing of a hospital and the killing of staff and patients can be dismissed as collateral damage or brushed aside as a mistake,鈥� Joanne Liu, international president of Doctors Without Borders, said at a news conference in Geneva Wednesday. On Tuesday the United States military took responsibility for the airstrike, calling it an accident.
Doctors Without Borders, known as MSF by its French initials, called on the International Humanitarian Fact-Finding Commission, an additional protocol set up under the Geneva Convention, to investigate the attack. Some 12 MSF staff and 10 patients, including three children, were killed in the bombings. Another 37 people were wounded.
According to CNN, the commission, set up in 1991, has never been used before. It requires at least one of the 76-nation signatories of the additional protocol to request the commission鈥檚 formation, and is tasked with uncovering whether anyone has violated international humanitarian laws. MSF says it is talking with Switzerland about mobilizing the 15-member commission of independent experts, Reuters reports.
鈥淚f we let this go as if it were a nonevent, we are basically giving a blank check to any country鈥� involved in an armed conflict, Ms. Liu said in Geneva.
On Tuesday,聽US Army Gen. John Campbell told Congress the airstrike was an accident.
"The hospital was mistakenly struck. We would never intentionally target a protected medical facility," Gen. Campbell told the Senate Armed Services Committee, promising a thorough and objective investigation, reports 海角大神.
Although MSF has characterized the attack as a war crime, it said the goal of the inquiry isn鈥檛 about establishing 鈥渃riminal liability, but rather to clarify the laws of war and the conditions under which medical teams can operate in situations of armed conflict,鈥� reports The New York Times.
The Saturday bombings bring to light the聽intense pressure for results in the fight against the Islamic State and the Taliban, writes 海角大神.