Quote; "A Saudi-led coalition airstrike has hit a Médecins Sans Frontières hospital in Yemen, the latest bombing of a civilian target in the seven-month air campaign in the country.
“Our hospital in the Heedan district of Saada governorate was hit several times. Fortunately, the first hit damaged the operations theatre while it was empty and the staff were busy with people in the emergency room. They just had time to run off as another missile hit the maternity ward,” MSF country director Hassan Boucenine told Reuters.
“It could be a mistake, but the fact of the matter is it’s a war crime. There’s no reason to target a hospital. We provided [the coalition] with all of our GPS coordinates about two weeks ago,” he said. At least two staff members were hurt by flying debris, according to Boucenine.
About 5,600 people have been killed in Yemen’s civil war, according to the World Health Organisation. The Saudi-led coalition is fighting the Houthis to drive them from the capital, Sana’a, and other areas they captured last year, and to restore the internationally recognised president, Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi.
Yemen was the poorest country in the Arab world long before the removal of its veteran president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, after popular protests in 2011. Now it is experiencing what Oxfam calls the world’s largest “forgotten emergency”.
Human rights groups have expressed concern at the mounting deaths caused by the aerial bombing and ground-fighting, while shuttle diplomacy by a UN envoy has yet to achieve a political solution or slow the pace of combat.
On Tuesday the UN secretary-general, Ban Ki-moon, condemned the hospital strike, calling for “a prompt, effective and impartial investigation in order to ensure accountability”. In a statement, a UN spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, added: “The secretary-general calls on all parties to the conflict in Yemen to immediately cease all operations, including air strikes.”
The crown prince of Abu Dhabi, Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, previously pledged that the nine-member coalition, which includes the United Arab Emirates, would “stand together until Yemen regains its Arab identity and is liberated from aggressors”.
The Saudis are supported by their allies, the US and Britain, which provide military equipment and intelligence support. But there is said to be growing disquiet in both the UK Foreign Office and the US Department of State about Riyadh’s strategy and civilian casualties.
Aid agencies say a key issue was the Saudi blockade of all major ports and airports, which means food imports struggle to get through. About 13 million of Yemen’s 23 million population are already defined as “food insecure” and 21 million are in need of assistance.
Natalie Roberts was MSF’s emergency coordinator for the area last summer and worked at the hospital that was struck on Monday night. She said it was the only functional hospital in the region and had a large catchment area.
“It’s an area that had a lot of civilian casualties from the Saudi airstrikes – the town the hospital is in was usually hit by Saudi airstrikes about three times a week and the nearby towns were hit pretty much every day,” she said.
“We used to get about 150 emergency cases a week, half of which were trauma incidents from the bombing. People would travel two, three hours to reach us.”
“Generally, patients weren’t very comfortable sleeping in the hospital overnight because it’s in a very dangerous location. It was pretty scary working there. We’d have to give the GPS coordinates of the hospital and our movements to the coalition so they wouldn’t bomb us.”
Roberts added that a nearby girls’ school was bombed several times when she worked in the area. “It’s destroyed. The children haven’t been able to go to school for months, pretty much since the war started. They still seem to be bombing the school even though there’s no one in there.”
This is the second time this month that an MSF facility has been hit in a war zone. Its hospital in the Afghan city of Kunduz was bombed by US forces on 3 October, killing at least 22 people." Go to: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/27/yemen-hospital-hit-by-saudi-led-airstrikes
"I Would Have Refused Such an Order"
Quote; "In our previous media alert, 'Sick Sophistry', we examined media coverage of the deliberate US bombing of a Médecins Sans Frontières hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan on October 3. In particular, we exposed the BBC's Pentagon-friendly reporting of the hospital as having been 'mistakenly' bombed.
On October 24, MSF announced that 30 people had now tragically died, up from the initial toll of 22. The humanitarian organisation, also known as Doctors Without Borders, continued to call for an independent international investigation into what it has called a 'war crime'. Associated Press has just reported new evidence 'that U.S. forces destroyed what they knew was a functioning hospital'.
The report comments:
'The Army Green Berets who requested the Oct. 3 airstrike on the Doctors without Borders trauma center in Afghanistan were aware it was a functioning hospital but believed it was under Taliban control, The Associated Press has learned.'Damningly, AP adds:
'A day before an American AC-130 gunship attacked the hospital, a senior officer in the Green Beret unit wrote in a report that U.S. forces had discussed the hospital with the country director of the medical charity group, presumably in Kabul, according to two people who have seen the document.'Meanwhile, there has still been no leading article in any UK newspaper backing MSF's call for an independent inquiry.
In response to our alert, we were contacted by a former RAF pilot with twenty years' military experience in several countries, including Afghanistan. He had discovered our alert by following a link in a comment posted underneath a recent Guardian piece mentioning the attack.
The former pilot gave us his name but, for obvious reasons, wishes to remain anonymous. He told us that he has experience of flying fast jets and multi-engine aircraft, and that he served operationally in the Balkans, Kosovo, Afghanistan and elsewhere. As far as we can tell, he appears to be genuine. He wrote to us in a series of emails (October 21-24):
'First time I have ever come across your organisation and I am very impressed by your work.'He then wrote:
'It has been my firm opinion from the very beginning that Kunduz hospital was indeed deliberately targeted. I slightly digress from the Lindorff article in that the C-130 Gunship is a pinpoint platform with a choice of munitions. The fact that the hospital was targeted on five separate occasions with unerring accuracy simply underlines how deliberate this attack was. The Gunship itself is a revered weapon on the battlefield, manned by elite crews who are very highly trained. I was involved in the Afghan campaign almost from the beginning when things were pretty hairy. The aircraft of choice for UK Special Forces on the ground was the Gunship and they lobbied for a UK version. It is expensive and due to the side-mounted howitzer limited to one role and so their requests were denied. The Gunship gives unsurpassed support to troops on the ground because of its multi-hour endurance and loiter capability and the accuracy of its smaller calibre cannon and capability of its enormous 105mm howitzer.'He continued:
'I do not accept that the target could have been mistakenly targeted. The crew and command centre would have been fully aware they were attacking a hospital. I followed one of your links suggesting that the C130 crew challenged their orders to target the hospital. This is the very least that I'd have expected to happen. I have extensive operational experience flying in Afghanistan. I am struggling to comprehend in what circumstance I would blindly follow an order to attack a fully manned civilian hospital. If the description provided by MSF's director-general is accurate I can say without hesitancy that I would have refused such an order for it is an obvious war crime. During the Kosovo war it was fairly routine for RAF Harrier pilots to return home with bombs still loaded because they had been unable to confirm visual acquisition of targets. RAF pilots are probably more inclined to think for themselves than American crews who are extremely tightly controlled. American military personnel give up many rights when they join up, but I am still disappointed that this crew did not appear to do more to challenge their orders. Back in the UK, we lost crown immunity many years ago and it is essential to challenge every questionable act carried out on the battlefield (our emphasis).He also commented on media coverage:
'Given that we agree that the hospital was deliberately targeted it would be useful to try and understand why. It is my opinion that whilst possible, it is unlikely that this was a mistake, intentional or otherwise, by Afghan commanders on the ground. I saw an unconfirmed report stating that US Special Forces were on the ground in Kunduz so it is unlikely that Afghans alone would have called in the attack. So the alternative is that the crew were given their mission from US Central Command or it was called in on the ground by their own people. This is why I doubt we'll see an independent inquiry. Very senior military officers would be on the hook for what happened in Kunduz because they would have authorised the sustained attack. It is still possible that the Kunduz hospital is seen as an operational "success"; the world of special operations is opaque. It is also a vague possibility that this was an act of gross incompetence, but that would still constitute a war crime. In any case, I simply do not believe it to be incompetence because of the sustained nature of the attack.'
'The response in the mainstream media mainly consisted of repeating what came off the wires. Unfortunately, the US military changed their version several times which weakened their case immediately. My own experience of BBC journalists is positive but when it comes to describing a major news event there is an immediate suspicion of editorial control from on high. I think it is extremely valuable that you target both individual journalists and the reporting of such events in general. I absolutely commend this approach, which is why I am happy to support you in your endeavours.'You may be shocked that even the deliberate bombing of a hospital may be regarded as an operational 'success'. There is no doubt that, were the full truth to emerge, the attack on the MSF hospital would be even more deeply embarrassing and damaging to Western interests than it already is. After all, 'we' do not commit war crimes; only 'our' enemies do that.
Long-time readers may recall that, in 2007, a serving British army officer in Iraq responded to an exchange we'd had with Mark Urban, the diplomatic editor of BBC Newsnight. The officer strongly rejected Urban's contention that the central US aim was that of 'forcing a democracy into the heart of the Middle East' (Newsnight, BBC2, April 12, 2005), commenting:
'There is a widespread, and well-sourced, belief based on both experience and evidence, in both the British military and academia, that the US is not "just in Iraq to keep the peace, regardless of what the troops on the ground believe. It is in Iraq to establish a client state amenable to the requirements of US realpolitik in a key, oil-rich region. To doubt this is to be ignorant of the motives that have guided US foreign policy in the post-war period and a mountain of evidence since 2003." (quote from Media Lens).'The officer gave rare voice to widespread scepticism within the military:
'That the invasion was "illegal, immoral and unwinnable", and the "greatest foreign policy blunder since Suez"... is the overwhelming feeling of many of my peers, and they speak of loathsome six-month tours, during which they led patrols with dread and fear, reluctantly providing target practice for insurgents, senselessly haemorrhaging casualties, and squandering soldiers' lives, as part of Bush's vain attempt to delay the inevitable Anglo-US rout until after the next US election.In response, Urban discussed the officer's email on the BBC's Newsnight programme; a rare concession to media activism.
'Given a free choice most of us would never have invaded Iraq, and certainly would have withdrawn long ago.'
Recall that the former RAF officer who emailed us after our Kunduz media alert made this particularly welcome point:
'it is essential to challenge every questionable act carried out on the battlefield'.It certainly is essential. And this is true, not just for military personnel with destructive high-tech weaponry at their fingertips; but also for journalists whose reporting has the power to facilitate or obstruct crimes against humanity.
DC and DE
Suggested Action
If you decide to contact a journalist in response to our alert, please keep the tone civil. We do not condone abusive language.Please ask the Guardian and the Independent to publish editorials backing MSF's call for an independent investigation into the US bombing of the Kunduz hospital:
Katharine Viner, Guardian editor-in-chief
Email: katharine.viner@theguardian.com
Twitter: @KathViner
Amol Rajan, Independent editor
Email: a.rajan@independent.co.uk
Twitter: @amolrajan
Please forward any replies to us:
editor@medialens.org
" Go to: http://medialens.org/index.php/alerts/alert-archive/2015/805-i-would-have-refused-such-an-order-former-raf-pilot-gives-his-view-of-us-bombing-of-msf-hospital-in-kunduz.html
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