Doctors Without Borders held events in New York and Geneva on November 3 to remember the 30 victims of a U.S. military strike on its trauma center in Kunduz, Afghanistan, one month ago.
Jason Cone, the executive director of the organization's U.S. arm, said at a Union Square rally in New York that the Kunduz incident raised fundamental issues for humanitarian workers in conflict zones.
"We knowingly take the risks associated with working in war zones," he said. "But what happened in Kunduz, the precise targeting, the prolonged destruction of a fully functioning hospital full of patients and health workers, transcended even the bounds of war."
While U.S. leaders from President Barack Obama on down have apologized profusely for the incident and have launched three investigations into what happened, the group, also known by its French initialism MSF, continues to call for an independent international investigation.
Deane Marchbein, a U.S. MSF board member, said the concern wasn't whether someone obeyed the chain of command but rather how governments view laws designed to protect humanitarian groups.
"Honestly, without clarification, it's hard to feel safe as a humanitarian worker," she said.
