Charity urges U.S. to pay Afghan hospital victims

KABUL, Afghanistan — A leading medical charity that suffered massive losses when U.S. helicopter gunships mistakenly struck its clinic in the northern Afghan city of Kunduz is criticizing the United States for failing to pay compensation to the wounded and families of the Afghans killed in the assault last October.

Doctors Without Borders says Washington should “urgently address” the issue — even as the Afghan government prepares to rebuild the hospital with millions of dollars donated by the U.S. military.

The U.S. military has, in fact, paid out hundreds of thousands of dollars to wounded survivors and relatives of those killed in the Kunduz attack, with payments of $6,000 for each person killed and the wounded receiving $3,000.

However U.S. officials have said the payments were not compensation, but condolence gestures, and representatives of the victims have said the payments were inadequate to make up for their losses. The payments that Doctors Without Borders is urging Washington to make are separate from that, the charity said.

The organization, known by its French initials MSF, has decided — at least for now — not to resume operations in Kunduz, where it ran the only trauma hospital in an increasingly violent part of the country, said Guilhem Molinie, the MSF representative for Afghanistan.

The Pentagon said the sustained attack was a mistake caused by human error. After a months-long investigation, the United States dismissed allegations by MSF that the incident amounted to a war crime, and exonerated all involved of any criminal action.

President Barack Obama apologized for the attack, which was one of the deadliest assaults on civilians in the 15-year war in Afghanistan.

But while the Pentagon report said no criminal charges had been leveled against U.S. military personnel for mistakes that resulted in the attack, about 16 American military personnel, including a two-star general, were disciplined.