There Are No Excuses for Bombing a Hospital

The airstrikes by the United States against the hospital run by Doctors Without Borders in the city of Kunduz constitutes a grave violation of international human rights. No one can excuse the violence against patients, medical personnel and medical structures. Even war has rules.

On Oct. 3, a U.S. airstrike directly and repeatedly struck the Doctors Without Borders hospital in the city of Kunduz, in the northeast region of Afghanistan, and caused the worst loss of life by an aerial attack in the history of our organization.

Thirty people lost their lives — at least 13 staff of Doctors Without Borders and 10 patients, including three children, many of them burned to death in their beds. Another worker and two patients are assumed dead, 27 were wounded, and seven other bodies that were found in the hospital were unidentifiable.

The bombings continued for more than 30 minutes, even though our colleagues told United States forces in Washington and in Kabul, Afghanistan that the hospital was being attacked. Both parties knew the GPS coordinates of the trauma center, which was fully operational at the time with 105 patients and more than 80 Doctors Without Borders workers.

The government of the United States admitted days later that it perpetuated the attack, minimized the bombing as “collateral damage,” and changed the reason for conducting the attack several times.

Nothing can excuse violence against patients, health workers and medical structures. The facts and circumstances of this grave violation of international human rights are unacceptable and should be investigated in a way that is independent and impartial, especially after the inconsistent explanations about what happened. We have suffered other attacks in the past, but this one has marked a turning point, and what is at stake is the future of medical assistance to populations caught in armed conflicts. Today, there is also the regrettable fact that more 300,000 people have no access to health care when they need it the most.

The president of the United States, Barack Obama, personally apologized. But that is not enough. We need the U.S. to respect the Geneva Conventions. We want to know what happened, and more importantly, why. We need respect. We cannot just trust the open investigations by the parties implicated in the conflict. We demand an independent investigation, not just for us, but for all of the medical and humanitarian personnel that help victims of conflicts in whatever part of the world they are. No one can bomb a hospital. Even wars have rules.

The author is director of Medicos Sin Fronteras.