Independent fact-finding mission called for after deadly Kunduz strike
Doctors Without Borders is appealing to the United States, Afghanistan and other countries to launch an independent fact-finding mission under rules of the Geneva Conventions into the US air strike on a hospital in Kunduz that killed at least 22 people.
The medical aid group, known by its French language acronym MSF, said its call would mark the first time such a fact-finding mission would be commissioned under the Conventions.
The group’s international president, Joanne Liu, told reporters that the weekend strike “was not just an attack on our hospital, it was an attack on the Geneva Conventions. This cannot be tolerated”.
Ms Liu said MSF is “working on the assumption of a possible war crime”, but said the group’s real goal is to establish facts about the incident and the chain of command, and clear up the rules of operation for all humanitarian organisations that operate in conflict zones.
The group is in essence dusting off an idle international agreement to try to better ensure that international humanitarian law is respected.
“The US attack on the MSF hospital in Kunduz was the biggest loss of life for our organisation in an air strike,” Ms Liu said. “Tens of thousands of people in Kunduz can no longer receive medical care now when they need it most. Today we say: enough. Even war has rules.”
The group said it is awaiting responses to letters it sent on Tuesday to 76 countries that have signed Article 90 of the additional protocol to the Geneva Conventions, seeking to mobilise a 15-member commission of independent experts that was set up in 1991. In this case, the US and Afghanistan, which are not signatories, must also give their consent to such a mission.
It says it has had no response yet from the US or any other countries.
MSF legal director Francoise Saulnier acknowledged that such a measure would require the “good will” of countries.
