Doctors Without Borders calls for independent probe of Afghan hospital bombing

Washington: Doctors Without Borders (MSF) has called for an independent investigation into the deadly bombing of its hospital in the Afghan city of Kunduz that killed 22 people.

According to CNN, aerial bombardments blew apart the medical facility about the time of a U.S. air strike early on Saturday.

Meanwhile, US Defense Secretary Ashley Carter on Sunday repeated President Barack Obama’s promise of a “full and transparent” investigation into whether his country’s military was responsible for an air strike on a hospital in Kunduz run by the Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), The Guardian reports.

On Saturday, a spokesman for international forces in Afghanistan acknowledged a strike had been carried out by US forces in Kunduz “against individuals threatening the force”.

The spokesman said that the strike may have resulted in collateral damage to a nearby medical facility.

In a statement later in the day, President Obama said that the U.S. Department of Defense has launched a full investigation and that they would await the results before making any judgment.

On Sunday, MSF’s general director, Christopher Stokes, called the strike a war crime, and added that “relying only on an internal investigation by a party to the conflict would be wholly insufficient”.

The blast killed 12 staffers and 10 patients, and left the hospital in flames and rubble. (ANI)