Medical charity MSF leaves Afghan city after fatal airstrike

It is only medical facility in whole north-eastern region of Afghanistan that can deal with major war injuries

KABUL: Medical charity MSF said on Sunday it has withdrawn staff from the embattled Afghan city of Kunduz, a day after an apparent US bombing raid on its hospital which the UN said could amount to a war crime.

Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said 19 people were killed, some of whom burned to death in their beds as the bombardment continued for more than an hour, even after US and Afghan authorities were informed the hospital had been hit.

It is the only medical facility in the whole north-eastern region of Afghanistan that can deal with major war injuries and its closure, even temporarily, could have a devastating impact on local civilians.

"The MSF hospital is not functional anymore. All critical patients have been referred to other health facilities and no MSF staff are working in our hospital," a spokeswoman for the charity told AFP. "I can't confirm at this stage whether our Kunduz trauma centre will re-open, or not."

The charity condemned Saturday's raids as "abhorrent and a grave violation of international law", demanding answers from US-led Nato forces in Afghanistan.

It said Afghan and coalition troops were fully aware of the exact location of the hospital, having been given GPS co-ordinates of a facility it said had been providing care for four years.

It added that despite frantic calls to military officials in Kabul and Washington, the main building housing the intensive care unit and emergency rooms was "repeatedly, very precisely" hit almost every 15 minutes for more than an hour.

MSF said some 105 patients and their caregivers, as well as more than 80 international and local MSF staff, were in the hospital at the time of the bombing.

"The bombs hit and then we heard the plane circle round," said Heman Nagarathnam, MSF's head of programmes in northern Afghanistan.

"There was a pause, and then more bombs hit. This happened again and again. When I made it out from the office, the main hospital building was engulfed in flames.

"Those people that could had moved quickly to the building's two bunkers to seek safety. But patients who were unable to escape burned to death as they lay in their beds."

Twelve staff members and at least seven patients, among them three children, were killed, while 37 people were injured.

US President Barack Obama offered his "deepest condolences" for what he called a "tragic incident".

"The Department of Defence has launched a full investigation, and we will await the results of that inquiry before making a definitive judgement as to the circumstances of this tragedy," Obama said in a statement.

Nato earlier conceded US forces may have been behind the bombing, after its forces launched a strike which they said was intended to target militants.

"The strike may have resulted in collateral damage to a nearby medical facility. This incident is under investigation," a statement said.

The incident has renewed concerns about the use of US air strikes in Afghanistan, a deeply contentious issue in the 14-year campaign against Taliban insurgents.

UN rights chief Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein called for a full and transparent probe, noting: "An air strike on a hospital may amount to a war crime." "This event is utterly tragic, inexcusable and possibly even criminal," he said.

MSF demands independent probe

Medical aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres on Sunday demanded that an independent international body investigate the air strike that hit an Afghan hospital.

An official said the group could not rely on a US military probe that has been launched into the destruction of the hospital during fighting in the northern city of Kunduz.

"Under the clear presumption that a war crime has been committed, MSF demands that a full and transparent investigation into the event be conducted by an independent international body," MSF General Director Christopher Stokes said in a statement.

"Relying only on an internal investigation by a party to the conflict would be wholly insufficient," his statement added.

MSF, which did not specify which international body would be acceptable, also raised the death toll from 19 to 22 staff and patients killed.