A U.S. gunship designed to provide added firepower to Special Operations forces was responsible for shooting and killing 22 people at a Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, on October 3, 2015. This issue became a big problem internationally, because even in war, places like hospitals are not supposed to be attacked. And US military did not give prior notification of the airstrike. There are continuing dispute over what exactly happened that night. American special operations analysts knew they were bombing a hospital run by Doctors Without Borders, the Associated Press reports.
The US chose to move forward with the airstrike because they believed a Pakistani was holding heavy weapons in storage and using the hospital as a command center, according to the AP's source who spoke on a condition of anonymity.
However, the bombing took place despite the fact that Doctors Without Borders (MSF) had provided the GPS coordinates of the trauma hospital to Coalition and Afghan military and civilian officials as recently as Tuesday, September 29, to avoid that the hospital be hit.
I was very shocked at the news. So I looked up many articles, and I found out that there is a law called Geneva conventions. The conventions distinguish between combatants and non-combatants and include rules protecting non-combatants.
So, in this case, the bombing can be a war crime.
War crimes under the conventions include willfully killing or torturing a protected person or targeting a protected facility such as a hospital without advance notice. The treaties were ratified by 196 countries including the United States.
Any serious violation of the law of armed conflict, such as attacking a hospital that is immune from intentional attack, is a war crime. Hospitals are immune from attack during an armed conflict unless being used by one party to harm the other and then only after a warning that it will be attacked.
My point of view is that we need to have acute investigation about why this tragedy happened, and then demand accountability and new safeguards to ensure this type of tragedy doesn't happen ever again.
I am so sorry for this incident.
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