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Survivors of Afghan hospital attack tell of terror

FILE - In this Oct. 16, 2015, file photo, an employee of Doctors Without Borders stands inside the charred remains of their hospital after it was hit by a U.S. airstrike in Kunduz, Afghanistan. A dozen survivors interviewed by The Associated Press are convinced that the attack on the hospital, which treated wounded Taliban and government fighters alike, was no accident. They say it was sustained and focused on destroying the main hospital building, which the aid agency says “correlates exactly” with GPS coordinates it had given to all parties in the conflict. (Najim Rahim via AP, File)
FILE - In this Oct. 16, 2015, file photo, an employee of Doctors Without Borders stands inside the charred remains of their hospital after it was hit by a U.S. airstrike in Kunduz, Afghanistan. A dozen survivors interviewed by The Associated Press are convinced that the attack on the hospital, which treated wounded Taliban and government fighters alike, was no accident. They say it was sustained and focused on destroying the main hospital building, which the aid agency says “correlates exactly” with GPS coordinates it had given to all parties in the conflict. (Najim Rahim via AP, File) FILE - In this Oct. 16, 2015, file photo, an employee of Doctors Without Borders stands inside the charred remains of their hospital after it was hit by a U.S. airstrike in Kunduz, Afghanistan. A dozen survivors interviewed by The Associated Press are convinced that the attack on the hospital, which treated wounded Taliban and government fighters alike, was no accident. They say it was sustained and focused on destroying the main hospital building, which the aid agency says “correlates exactly” with GPS coordinates it had given to all parties in the conflict. (Najim Rahim via AP, File)

By Associated Press 7 min read

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) – It was like the end of the world, Anayatullah Nazari said. “It was like they were determined to kill us all and that nobody would survive. It was like doomsday, nothing I could ever imagine.”

More than six weeks after a U.S. Air Force AC-130 gunship repeatedly struck a well-marked Doctors Without Borders hospital, killing 30 people in the northern Afghan city of Kunduz, official U.S., NATO and Afghan government reviews have yet to be released.

But a dozen survivors interviewed by The Associated Press are convinced that the assault on the hospital – which treated wounded Taliban and government fighters alike – was no accident. They say it was sustained and focused on destroying the main hospital building, which the aid agency says “correlates exactly” with GPS coordinates it had given to all parties in the conflict.

A NATO general blamed human and technical errors for the attack. The Pentagon insists that the Americans involved in ordering the strike didn’t realize it was a hospital.

If they did, it would be a war crime.