One was a doctor, the other a nurse. There was a pharmacist and then there was a counsellor. They were flesh and blood, 47 persons killed in air attacks that struck Medecins Sans Frontiers (MSF)-run Kunduz Trauma Centre in North-Eastern Afghanistan, last year. Since October last year, after the Kunduz attack, there have been a total of seventy-six air attacks on MSF-run or supported hospitals in Syria, Yemen and Afghanistan, MSF officials told on Monday.
One was a doctor, the other a nurse. There was a pharmacist and then there was a counsellor. They were flesh and blood, 47 persons killed in air attacks that struck Medecins Sans Frontiers (MSF)-run Kunduz Trauma Centre in North-Eastern Afghanistan, last year. Since October last year, after the Kunduz attack, there have been a total of 76 air attacks on MSF-run or supported hospitals in Syria, Yemen and Afghanistan, MSF officials said on Monday.
"All of these have been air strikes and air raids carried out by allies of coalition forces, be it US which is supporting Saudi-coalition led strikes in Yemen or Russian forces in Syria,”said Peter Paul De Groote, General Director, MSF India, New Delhi.
MSF strongly condemned the non-constitution of an independent fact-finding investigation to nail the perpetrators in the view of these attacks. On being asked if MSF is satisfied with the way US initiated actions against its military forces post-attacks, Groote said, “We cannot take US-government’s claims that they have prosecuted the perpetrators on face value. There has to be an impartial probe.”
Interestingly, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon in his report on Kunduz attack attributed the air raids to ‘international forces,’ without mentioning US in particular. MSF said that the 92-bed high level trauma hospital was air raided on October 3, last year by a US AC-139 gunship, which fired 211 shells on main hospital building starting 2:08 am when patients were sleeping.
“While special courts have tried state leaders for war crimes when it comes to Rwanda in Africa or Yugoslavia in Eastern Europe, in case of Kunduz attacks, an inquiry has not even been initiated. The US has said it is an accident, however when the number of accidents run into double-digits, you are either shooting at the wrong place or you are shooting on precision for a reason,” said Yuri Afanasiev, UN Resident Coordinator and UNDP Resident Representative in India.
The latest of these attacks was as recent as September 28, last week, when two hospitals in east Aleppo, Syria were bombed which caused deaths of two patients and injured two staff members.
Air Attacks on MSF facilities since October 3, 2015 -
Syria - 69
Yemen - 6
Afghanistan - 1
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