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PENTAGON TO PAY COMPENSATION TO VICTIMS OF U.S. AIRSTRIKE ON AFGHAN HOSPITAL

TO FAMILIES OF THOSE KILLED AND INJURED


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USPA NEWS - The Pentagon has announced it will pay compensation to families of those killed and the injured from US air strikes in the northern Afghan city of Kunduz. Doctors Without Borders says 33 people are still missing after the 3 October attack in addition to 12 MSF staff...
The Pentagon has announced it will pay compensation to families of those killed and the injured from US air strikes in the northern Afghan city of Kunduz. Doctors Without Borders says 33 people are still missing after the 3 October attack in addition to 12 MSF staff and 10 patients already confirmed dead.

Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook announced Saturday 'The United States will make 'condolence payments' to the wounded victims and the families of twenty two people killed in the airstrike against a Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, last week'
It remains unclear how the mistake happened. Doctors Without Borders, operating the only trauma center of its kind in northeastern Afghanistan, has repeatedly said that it had given GPS coordinates to the U.S. military before and during the attack. The Pentagon, NATO and the Afghan government are conducting separate investigations into one of the worst U.S. attacks to produce civilian casualties since the war began 14 years ago. (LA Times)
Doctors Without Borders has called for an independent probe of the incident by the Swiss-based International Humanitarian Fact-Finding Commission , which is made up of diplomats, legal experts, doctors and some former military officials from nine European countries, including Britain and Russia. It was created after the Gulf War in 1991, and has never deployed a fact-finding mission. Doctors Without Borders is awaiting responses to letters sent Tuesday to 76 countries that signed the additional protocol to the Geneva Conventions, asking to mobilize the 15-member commission.
The charity, which has condemned the air attack as a war crime, is stressing the need for an international investigation, saying the bombing raid contravened the Geneva conventions.

Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said 'The Department of Defence believes it is important to address the consequences of the tragic incident,' adding that US Forces-Afghanistan (USFOR-A) also had the authority to pay for repairs to the hospital.
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