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MSF Waiting for Independent Investigation Into Kunduz Attack to Re-Open Facility

© REUTERS / Stringer A vehicle is parked in front of a damaged building at Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) in Kunduz, Afghanistan October 16, 2015.
A vehicle is parked in front of a damaged building at Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) in Kunduz, Afghanistan October 16, 2015. - Sputnik International
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Doctors Without Borders (MSF) is waiting for an independent investigation into the attack on its hospital in Afghanistan's Kunduz in October 2015 in order to find out the real reasons why the facility was bombed and to be able to re-open it, MSF Senior Humanitarian Specialist Michiel Hofman told Sputnik on Tuesday.

An interior view of the MSF Trauma Centre, 14 October 2015, shows a missile hole in the wall and the burnt-out remians of the the building aftera sustained attack on the facility in Kunduz, northern Afghanistan - Sputnik International
One Year On: US Bombing of MSF Hospital in Kunduz Remembered
MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Monday, October 3, marked the anniversary since a US gunship unleashed over 200 shells on the MSF hospital in the northern Afghan city of Kunduz, killing 14 MSF aid workers, 24 patients and four of their caretakers.

"We want an independent investigation. Because it will much more likely provide us with answers. Because people who investigate on mistakes are usually not the best people to bring the truth. We are looking for facts. But at the moment nobody is conducting this [independent] investigation," Hofman said.

After the attack, MSF immediately demanded that the Kunduz bombing be investigated by an independent international body as a war crime, arguing Washington knew about the clinic's location prior to the attack.

Despite this, the Pentagon conducted an internal military probe and issued a heavily redacted report last April that described the airstrikes as a combination of human errors and technical failures.

However, it was absolutely clear that the facility was a hospital, and all sides knew about it, Hofman underlined.

"Key question that we need to know is why the hospital was attacked, whether by a mistake or not, it does not matter. It had a protective status, and something made it lose this status. Until we know what it is, it is impossible for us to send our teams back to Kunduz and start the hospital again," Hofman said.

The chief humanitarian specialist explained that the organization that would fit most for such an investigation and that was created specifically for probes on possible breaches of international humanitarian law is the Independent Humanitarian Fact-finding Commission.

"Why not using it?.. Nobody wants to do that. Other avenues can be what we mentioned last week at the UNSC. If the UN and the Security Council is serious about wanting to stop attacks on medical facilities, they should appoint a Special Rapporteur to the Secretary-General. But we do not know whether that is going to happen," Hofman said.

Sixteen US military officials received administrative punishments, saying the mistake was unintentional. MSF called this response disproportional.

The deadly attack on the Kunduz medical center and a rise in assaults on MSF-supported clinics in Syria and Yemen led to the UN Security Council passing a resolution in May 2016 that condemned targeting healthcare facilities and demanded accountability from warring parties.

Speaking at the UNSC last Wednesday, MSF's International President Joanne Liu called attacks on hospitals a red line and complained that nothing had changed since the adoption of Resolution 2286.

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