PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA APOLOGIZES FOR THE ATTACK OF KUNDUZ HOSPITAL -AFGHANISTAN

USPA NEWS - President Barack Obama called the Doctors Without Borders (MSF) International President, Dr Joanne Liu, and the President of Afghanistan, Ashraf Ghani, to apologize for the deadly bombing of MSF Hospital in Kunduz...

President Barack Obama called the Doctors Without Borders (MSF) International President, Dr Joanne Liu, and the President of Afghanistan, Ashraf Ghani, to apologize for the deadly bombing of MSF Hospital in Kunduz. MSF declared that an independent commission created under the Geneva Conventions in 1991 should be activated for the first time to handle the inquiry. Barack Obama expressed his condolences for the organisation's staff and patients who where killed and injured when a U.S. Military airstrike hit the Hospital. Nevertheless, MSF is calling this strike 'attack on the Geneva Conventions'.

The President promised a full investigation of the incident. In addition to the Department of Defense investigative process that is already underway, there also will be an investigation that is conducted by NATO and a third joint investigation carried out by U.S. Military personnel alongside Afghan security officials into the deadly airstrike. (NBC)

Dr Joanne Liu said in a statement 'However, we reinterate our ask that the U.S. Government consent to an independent investigation led by the International Humanitarian Fact-Finding Commission to establish what happenend in Kunduz, how it happened, and why it happened.' This one being in existence since 1991, it requires a request by one of the seventy six Nations that have signed on to Article 90 of the additional protocol to the Geneva Conventions, for it to begin to work. Its job is to investigate whether international humanitarian law has been violated.

Twelve MSF staff along with seven patients, including three children, were killed after the airstrike. Another thirty seven others were injured : nineteen staff members, including five in critical condition, and eighteen patients and caretakers. MSF shared its GPS coordinates with all authorities. Dr Joanne Liu said 'We had eight ICU (intensive care unit) beds with ventilators, this was high-tech medicine. This was not the little bush hospital. You could not miss it.' (Reuters)

The White House stressed on Wednesdy that there are specific and technical parameters of meeting the criteria of a war crime, but acknoledged that the airstrike was a tragic 'mistake'.

Neither the United States nor Afghanistan were signatories to the International Fact-Finding Commission but Jason Cone, executive director of MSF in the United States, called on Barack Obama to consent to the Commission 'Doing so will send a powerful signal of the U.S. Government' commitment to and respect for international humanitarian law under rules of war'.

Jason Cone called on the seventy six Nations that recognize the panel to press the issue on the charity's behalf, though none of the seventy six had stepped forward as of midday Wednesday. He said the changing U.S. Accounts of the strikes underscore the need for an independent inquiry. (CNN)

The United Nations had condemned the attack but said it would wait for the results of U.S., NATO and Afghan investigations before deciding whether to support an independent probe. (Reuters)