International investigators ready to probe Kunduz hospital bombing

The medical charity Doctors Without Border on Wednesday said a global panel is ready to investigate the U.S. bombing of one of the group’s hospitals in Afghanistan, as soon as it receives approval from the U.S. and Afghanistan to conduct the probe. 

The hospital was hit in an Oct. 3 air raid on the city of Kunduz, where Afghan forces were combatting Taliban militants. Twenty-two people, including 12 hospital staff were killed. 

Doctors Without Borders, also known as Medecins Sans Frontiers (MSF), has called for a third-party investigation of the incident, demanding that the Independent Humanitarian Fact-Finding Commission, created under the 1991 Geneva Conventions be activated for the first time to handle the probe. 

“We have received apologies and condolences, but this is not enough,” said Dr. Joanne Liu, MSF International President in a statement Wednesday.

“We are still in the dark about why a well-known hospital full of patients and medical staff was repeatedly bombarded for more than an hour. We need to understand what happened and why.” 

MSF has alleged the bombing, if intentionally, constitutes a war crime. The organization said it could not rely on on U.S., NATO and Afghan internal investigations to get to the bottom of the bombing.

The Swiss foreign ministry confirmed that the panel has been activated. 

“The commission has already offered its services to the governments of the USA and Afghanistan,” a Swiss foreign ministry spokesman said in an email to Reuters on Wednesday. “Any investigation would require the agreement of both governments, however.”

MSF has alleged the bombing, if intentionally, constitutes a war crime. The organization said it could not rely on on U.S., NATO and Afghan internal investigations to get to the bottom of the bombing.

The Pentagon is conducting its own review of the incident. 

Gen. John F. Campbell, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, told lawmakers that the hospital was “mistakenly struck.”