3 killed in raid on health clinic: Aid group
Iran Press TV
Thu Feb 18, 2016 6:34PM
A Swedish aid group says Afghan forces have killed two patients and a caretaker during an attack on one of its clinic in the central part of the war-torn country.
The Swedish Committee for Afghanistan (SCA) said on Thursday that the raid took place on its health facility in the Tangi Saidan area of Wardak Province on Wednesday night, accusing members of the Afghan National Army (ANA) of being behind the assault.
The charity denounced the deadly attack as a violation of international humanitarian law, with its country director Jorgen Holmstrom saying, "This attack constitutes a gross violation of humanitarian principles and the Geneva Convention that all actors of a conflict have to respect."
He added that the organization would further investigate the raid and "let those responsible be held accountable."
However, Afghan officials gave conflicting reports, saying that those killed were members of the Taliban militant group.
According to Akhtar Mohammad Tahiri, chief of the Wardak provincial council, Afghan special forces killed four at the clinic and arrested three, including a doctor.
Wardak provincial governor Hayatullah Hayat also said the report is difficult to verify as the area is controlled by Taliban and that the raid may have been carried out by police and not the army.
"There was an operation by the Afghan forces, possibly police, in the area which targeted a group of enemy fighters, but it was not close to any health facility," he said.
Another senior official also confirmed the attack but said it was not near the hospital.
The SCA runs health, education and other development program in nearly half of Afghanistan's 34 provinces. It has worked in the country since 1980.
In a separate development, the International Red Cross on Thursday announced the suspension of its activities in Ghazni Province as five of its local staff there have been held hostage by what it described as a "local armed group."
Last October, a US airstrike on a hospital in the northern city of Kunduz run by medical aid group Doctors Without Borders left 42 people dead.
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