US President Barack Obama apologised to the head of aid agency Medecins San Frontieres (MSF)and promised accountability for the attack, which left nearly two dozen patients and staff dead.
White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said the president had called Dr Joanne Liu, international president of Doctors Without Borders, for a personal apology over the incident, and promised a “full accounting” of who was to blame for the attack.
Mr Earnest said “when the United States makes a mistake, we own up to it, we apologise”.
MSF has continued to call for a full international independent investigation in to the incident, requesting the United States “consent to an independent investigation led by the International Humanitarian Fact-Finding Commission”.
Mr Obama’s apology comes after US officials admitted that American personnel were not being fired at by the Taliban as they had originally stated. The decision to strike the hospital was “a US decision made within the US chain of command,” admitted Gen. John F. Campbell, the American commander in Afghanistan.
See more from the New York Times here.
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