Doctors Without Borders contacted officials more than a dozen times during the hour-long bombing of its hospital in Afghanistan last month, according to a preliminary report released by the group on Thursday.
More than a month after a U.S. airplane bombed the hospital after Afghan forces called in for support, the military has yet to release any information as to why the hospital was struck in an act some organizations are calling a war crime.
The Doctors Without Borders report said the bombing started around 2 a.m. on Oct. 3, and lasted about an hour. Officials with the medical group in Kabul contacted officials with the U.S.-led military mission for the first time at 2:19 a.m., saying that the hospital had been hit by an airstrike.
That was the first in a long string of communications with multiple U.S. organizations, including the Department of Defense in Washington, informing them of the bombing and the death toll and pleading for it to stop.
Five minutes after Doctors Without Borders texted Operate Resolute Support staff in Afghanistan informing them that one staff member was confirmed dead, they received a reply stating, “I’m sorry to hear that, I still do not know what happened.”
In total, 30 medical staff and patients, including some children, were killed in the attack.
The report describes a gruesome scene, including immobile intensive care unit patients burning in their beds and some patients dying while on the operating table. One doctor’s leg was blown off in the blasts. He later died while other medical staff were operating on him on an office desk. Another member of the medical team was decapitated by shrapnel, the report states.
In addition to the bombings, witnesses described seeing people get shot while trying to flee the hospital building that was under attack, the report said.
Officials said the hospital did contain injured Taliban fighters, but that there was no active fighting going on at the time of the bombing and that all patients were abiding by the no-weapons rule.
Capt. Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman, said the military had received an advanced copy of the report and expressed his sympathy of those who had died.
“We appreciate [Doctors Without Borders] sharing this report with us in advance of its release, and it is being made available to our investigators who continue their efforts,” Davis said in a statement.
This week, the Defense Department said there was no timeline to release either the initial or in-depth report to hold troops accountable.
Doctors Without Borders has repeatedly called for an independent investigation, but so far, neither U.S. nor Afghan officials have consented to this request, the report says.
