When U.S. forces bombed an Afghan hospital on Oct. 3 there was no fighting in the area, no weapons in the building, and aid workers were in full control of the hospital, according to a new report on the incident that killed 30 people.
Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières, or MSF) released its investigation into what happened before, during and after the attack on Thursday, providing new details of the tragic event.
MSF staff began sending distress calls to various organizations, including the UN’s Humanitarian Civil-Military Coordination, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and a US Department of Defense contact in Washington, when the hour-long attack started around 2:00 a.m. local time.
One response came in at 2:59 a.m., an SMS reply received from NATO’s Resolute Support saying “I’ll do my best, praying for you all.”
There were 105 patients at the hospital in the northern Afghanistan city of Kunduz, and 149 MSF staff when the attack started.
The ICU was among the first rooms to be hit, according to the report, and was filled with staff caring for a number of immobile patients, and two children.
The initial strikes killed some staff members and immobile patients, who the report says were “burned in their beds.”
According to the report, staff witnessed people being shot as they tried to flee the main building which appeared to be the main target of the attack.
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“Some accounts mention shooting that appears to follow the movement of people on the run. MSF doctors and other medical staff were shot while running to reach safety in a different part of the compound,” the report states.
Thirty people died during the attack; 13 staff, 10 patients. One MSF staff member and two patients remain missing.
WATCH: U.S. President Barack Obama has apologized to Doctors Without Borders for the U.S. airstrike that hit the group’s medical clinic in Afghanistan killing 22 people. White House spokesman Josh Earnest says Obama offered his condolences to the aid group’s staff.
The U.S. military has said the attack was a mistake. President Barack Obama issued a public apology in the days after the attack, and said the U.S. would examine military procedures.
“We are still expecting and hoping to get a really detailed version of what happened that night and a clear explanation,” said MSF general director Christopher Stokes in a press conference Thursday. “Because all the information that we have provided so far shows that a mistake is quite hard to understand and believe at this stage.”
MSF is demanding an independent inquiry into the incident. The coordinates of the medical facility were known to both Afghan and U.S. militaries, and MSF flags were flying at the site.
The hospital has remained closed since the attack, and MSF has left the area.
“There are still many unanswered questions, including who took the final decision, who designated, who gave the targeting instructions for the hospital,” said Stokes.
“So for the moment, we still haven’t received reassuring clear explanations of what happened. And that is why we are not in the position also to restart the hospital at the moment.”
While there were Taliban fighters being treated in the hospital, that is not unusual as it is MSF’s policy to treat all wounded.
The hospital had been in operation since 2011, and in that time had performed more than 15,000 surgeries and treated more than 68,000 people free of charge and “without any distinctions of their ethnicity, religious beliefs or political affiliation.”
The report notes there was fighting in the area in the days before the attack. However, according to the MSF report, on the day of the attack there was no fighting in the area, contrary to initial explanations from the U.S. that it was responding to requests from Afghan forces who claimed to be under fire.
With files from the Associated Press
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