Washington: US President Barack Obama telephoned the head of Medecins San Frontieres (MSF) and apologised for a deadly air strike on the aid group’s hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, the White House said on Wednesday.
On the call with the medical charity’s president, Joanne Liu, Obama also said the US investigation into the incident would “provide a transparent, thorough and objective accounting of the facts and circumstances of the incident. And that, if necessary, the president would implement changes to make tragedies like this one less likely to occur in the future”, said White House spokesman Josh Earnest.
MSF, also known as Doctors Without Borders, is calling for an independent international fact-finding commission to be established to probe the bombing, which took place on Saturday.
Obama also called Afghan President Ashraf Ghani to express condolences for the lives lost of patients and staff during the strike, Earnest said.
Meanwhile, MSF demanded an independent international commission to investigate the bombing.
MSF, which deems the attack a war crime, urged Obama to consent to a humanitarian commission established under the Geneva Conventions, even though neither the US nor Afghanistan were signatories to the commission.
The group said that the inquiry would gather facts and evidence from the US, NATO and Afghanistan, as well as testimony from MSF staff and patients who survived the attack.
Only then would MSF consider whether to bring criminal charges for loss of life and partial destruction of its trauma hospital, which has left tens of thousands of Afghans without access to health care, it said.
“If we let this go, as if was a non-event, we are basically giving a blank cheque to any countries who are at war,” said Liu in Geneva.
"If we don’t safeguard that medical space for us to do our activities, then it is impossible to work in other contexts like Syria, South Sudan, like Yemen.”
In New York, Jason Cone, executive director of MSF in the US, called for the International Humanitarian Fact-Finding Commission to be activated for the first time since its 1991 creation under the Geneva Conventions.
On Tuesday, the US military took responsibility for the air strike that killed 22 people, including 12 MSF staff, calling it a mistake.
US Defence Secretary Ash Carter, speaking in Rome on Wednesday, said: “We are conducting a full and transparent investigation and will make the findings of that investigation known as they are found and will hold accountable anyone responsible for conduct that was improper.”
Liu spoke of the chaos as the bombs fell for an hour.
“Our patients burned in their beds, MSF doctors nurses, and other staff were killed as they worked. Our colleagues had to operate on each other,” she said.
The Afghan Ministry of Defence said on Sunday Taliban fighters had attacked the hospital and were using the building “as a human shield”, which the medical group denied, while pointing out it would be a war crime not to treat the wounded.
The UN has condemned the attack but said it would wait for the results of investigations before deciding whether to support an independent probe.