(Newswire.net — October 3, 2015) — Nine Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières ) working in hospital in Afghanistan were killed and 37 injured in US air attack declared by the Pentagon as the “collateral damage,” the Guardian reported.
Hospital in the Afghan city of Kunduz has been hit and partially destroyed in an overnight “aerial attack.” NATO command admitted the US Air Force might have caused “accidental collateral damage.”
“The strike may have resulted in collateral damage to a nearby medical facility,” said NATO coalition Representative Colonel Brian Tribus, adding that the “incident is under investigation.”
“We are deeply shocked by the attack, the killing of our staff and patients and the heavy toll it has inflicted on healthcare in Kunduz,” Bart Janssens, MSF’s director of operations, said in a statement.
Janssens said bombing the hospital continued some 30 minutes after MSF organization informed US and Afghanistan officials.
“The bombing continued for more than 30 minutes after American and Afghan military officials in Kabul and Washington were first informed. MSF urgently seeks clarity on exactly what took place and how this terrible event could have happened,” the Charity said in statement.
Reportedly, there were over 80 personnel, both local and international, inside the building, treating over 105 patients, at the time that the aerial attack occurred.
“We do not yet have the final casualty figures, but our medical team are providing first aid and treating the injured patients and MSF personnel and accounting for the deceased,” MSF said.
According to the Dr Masood Nasim, who was leading the MSF medical team at trauma hospital in Kunduz, the medical Centre has been there from the beginning of the war.
“Early on Monday morning, I came to MSF’s hospital here in Kunduz after hearing the sound of shells falling. By midday our hospital was on the frontline, with fighting right outside the gate. You could hear the sound of shelling, rockets and airplanes. Some bullets have come into the hospital, some even through the roof of the intensive care unit,” Nasim said.
MSF charity doctor Adil Akbar told AP that he managed to escape after the attack, but many of his colleagues and some patients are missing.
The three-day Taliban takeover of Kunduz, a city of some 300,000, was an embarrassing blow to the government of President Ashraf Ghani. However, the bad intelligence that leads to the attack on the charity hospital is even more embarrassing to US Air Force, which is helping Afghan president in his fight with the Kurds.