Twelve staff members and seven patients were killed early Saturday in the Afghan city of Kunduz when a US-led bombing raid hit a Doctors Without Borders hospital. Now the UN says the move could constitute a war crime.
UN Rights Chief Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein on Saturday called the raid "inexusable," and perhaps criminal.
"This event is utterly tragic, inexcusable and possibly even criminal," the UN official said in a statement.
Harrowing accounts from survivors of the bombing are just now surfacing. One nurse present in the hospital recounted the story later Saturday.
We went to look for survivors ... One by one, people started appearing, wounded, including some of our colleagues and caretakers of patients," Lajos Zoltan Jecs said. "I cannot describe what was inside. There are no words for how terrible it was. In the Intensive Care Unit six patients were burning in their beds."
Meanwhile, the Pentagon says it's opening an investigation into the incident. And while tthe medical organization and several other international bodies have called for answers, on social media, the fear lingers that this attack will end up being filed away as more "collateral damage" in the war-torn country.
See some of the responses below. Via Twitter.
#MSF President Meinie Nicolai "We cannot accept that this horrific loss of life will simply be dismissed as collateral damage" #Afghanistan
— Jon Williams (@WilliamsJon) October 3, 2015“Collateral damage” won't cut it. Needs to be serious answers as to how U.S. airstrikes hit #Afghanistan hospital http://t.co/0SF0nd7Upt
— Sara Firth (@Sara__Firth) October 3, 2015Photos of aftermath of the bombing that left 3 staff dead & many ppl wounded. #Afghanistan http://t.co/pjecwxuPSs pic.twitter.com/OnSZXwc2x9
— MSF UK Press Office (@MSF_Press) October 3, 2015
