"It immediately conjured up visions of the horror that had enveloped me in Medecins Sans Frontieres' Kunduz Trauma Centre eight months earlier; being ripped from sleep by the eardrum-rupturing first explosion; my thudding heart, my shaking hands, dry retching while helplessly staring into the terrified eyes of my friend who was bleeding to death in front of me. It reminded me of my overwhelming grief as another and another and another of my friends, colleagues, patients were confirmed dead, while I tried to focus on saving the lives of countless others brutally injured - limbs ripped off, shrapnel rocketed through their bodies, pressure injuries to the eyes, ears, lungs."
I had seen them just two hours earlier and my reassurances to them that the hospital was the safest place was replaced with the horror of knowing that my intensive care patients, incapacitated, were burning to death in their beds.
"On October 3 last year, a US military AC130 gunship bombed our hospital, killing 42 people, including 14 of our own staff. I was inside."
"The bombing of our hospital in Kunduz was a high-profile international case that helped to build public awareness about the alarming trend of attacks on medical facilities in conflict zones and the apparent growing disregard for International Humanitarian Law (IHL). In 2015 alone, 75 Medecins Sans Frontieres hospitals were attacked around the world. And these were just the Medecins Sans Frontieres and Medecins Sans Frontieres-supported hospitals – only the tip of the iceberg."
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