Boston-area doctors are weighing in on the bombing of a Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan
Sunday, the General Director of Doctors Without Borders condemned Saturday’s airstrikes calling the attack a “war crime,” and demanding an independent investigation. President Obama has said the U.S. will investigate.
Meanwhile the thousands of volunteers who risk their lives to help save others, including local doctors want someone to be held accountable.
“The first and only word that comes to mind is a hero.”
That’s how Boston-based Dr. Hilarie Cranmer describes the men and women who serve on medical missions like ‘Doctors Without Borders.’
She along with her colleagues are saddened and outraged that 12 staffers, and at least ten patients, including children were killed in the bombing of an Afghan hospital, run by the charity.
“I was in tears in all honestly and I’m getting goose bumps thinking about it now,” said Dr. Haytham Kaafarani.
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The Fellow Mass General doctor and trauma surgeon says he was asked just days ago to be at that hospital in Kunduz, as a volunteer. He declined because of his schedule and the risk.
“I got to dangerous missions all the time, but this might be… I felt this was a little more dangerous than I want,” said Dr. Kaafarani.
Tragically he was right. His last 2 missions have been in dangerous location in Central Africa, where he admits he was at times, scared.
“When I see how much stress we got through on these missions, and suddenly being attacked by potentially our own people, not the people we’re fearing... for us its very devastating and it just makes us cringe at the injustice that has happened,” he said.
Dr. Cranmer trains medical workers who are heading out on similar volunteer missions. She educates them on the dangers of serving, which could include death.
She says workers in any hospital should never have had to worry about being targeted, but Saturday’s airstrikes proved they now do.
“Regardless of where that bomb came from, the implication of what it means for society are tremendous,” said Dr. Cranmer.
Dr. Kaafarani says that the bombings in Afghanistan only make him more committed to serves as a Doctors Without Borders volunteer.
