Every terrorist who used its inhabitants as “human shields” were also killed. You likely will never read or hear about that important detail…

The US airstrike on a Doctors Without Borders hospital in Afghanistan may have been a war crime, according to a UN human rights chief.

Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein said that if an investigation found the hospital was purposefully targeted, the incident could constitute a war crime.

Calling the bombing which killed 19 ‘tragic, inexcusable and possibly even criminal,’ he said: ‘If established as deliberate in a court of law, an airstrike on a hospital may amount to a war crime.’

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon also ‘condemned’ the strikes, which killed 12 Doctors Without Borders staff, as well as seven patients – three of them children. Thirty more are unaccounted for and 37 were wounded.

At least 12 Doctors Without Borders medical staff were killed, as well as seven patients. The aid organization – also known by its French name Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) insists the bombardment continued for half an hour after the U.S. military was informed the hospital was hit.

People who witnessed the attack spoke of their horror as bomb blasts hit the hospital.

Kunduz resident Dawood Khan said a cousin who works at the clinic as a doctor was lightly wounded in the bombing.

‘I heard the sound of the bomb and rushed to the hospital to get news. The operating theater was on fire, people were terrified, running everywhere,’ he said.

Heman Nagarathnam, MSF head of programs in northern Afghanistan, said: ‘The bombs hit and then we heard the plane circle round. There was a pause, and then more bombs hit. This happened again and again.

‘When I made it out from the office, the main hospital building was engulfed in flames. Those people that could had moved quickly to the building’s two bunkers to seek safety. But patients who were unable to escape burned to death as they lay in their beds.’

When the aerial attack occurred, 105 patients – including 59 children – and their caretakers were in the hospital. More than 80 international and national staff from Doctors Without Borders were present, according to the charity.

All of the terrorists were killed but we also lost doctors,’ Interior Ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqqi said.

NATO issued a statement saying that it had conducted an airstrike at 2.15am local time [8.45pm GMT], and that it ‘may have resulted in collateral damage to a nearby medical facility’ while combating Taliban forces in the northern city.

It added that the airstrike continued for more than 30 minutes after American and Afghan military forces had allegedly been informed the hospital had been hit.

MSF insisted that U.S. and Afghan officials were aware of the location of the hospital and had given exact co-ordinates just three days before the bombing.

The U.S. military is investigating whether one of its AC-130 gunships – which was firing on Taliban positions to defend U.S. special operations troops there – is responsible for the bombardment, a U.S. military official told CNN on condition of anonymity.

The hospital has been running ‘beyond capacity’ amid heavy fighting in Kunduz, which saw the northern city fall into Taliban hands for several days – the first major city in 14 years to be taken over by the fundamentalist group.

An Afghan Ministry of the Interior spokesman, Sediq Sediqqi, told NBC News that Taliban fighters had begun firing on government forces from inside the compound.

Sediqqi said ‘there was an operation conducted to eliminate the threat. The hospital has been damaged and there are some casualties.

Government ministers said that hundreds of Taliban fighters had come into the city during the Eid holiday weekend before launching their attack Monday.

Afghan government forces, who have taken over security for the country after the departure of many NATO troops last year, have since taken back parts of the city, including a central area with government buildings.

Although the Taliban still claims to be in control of vast swathes of the city.

Via: UK Daily Mail