| Description |
1 online resource (streaming video file) (30 min.) ; 179998484 bytes |
| Summary |
It had a very particular "VOO-PAH" sort of noise. It vibrated in your chest. I waited for this moment of clarity or my life flashing before my eyes, the moment I'd seen on TV shows. It was just overwhelming fear. - Australian doctor Kathleen Thomas<br /><br />It was the instant in which an American AC-130 gunship pumped the first of 211 artillery shells into the MSF-run hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, last October 3. <br /><br />The whole building - the glass, the ceiling, the iron - everything collapsed - Afghan doctor Esmatullah Esmat<br /><br />Horrifically wounded patients screamed for morphine. Hospital staff frantically triaged the maimed. At the end of it all, amid smouldering ruins, 42 patients, family and medical staff were dead, and 37 wounded. <br /><br />My brother and my sister are always crying. Nothing will compensate for the loss of my father - Samiullah, son of a patient killed on the operating table<br /><br />People here were telling me that they will not bomb the area. But they did bomb - father of three year old girl Shaesta, who had been recovering from a leg amputation<br /><br />So why did the Americans attack? Was it anything to do with MSF's strict neutrality policy that saw it treat wounded Taliban just like any other patients - a policy deeply resented by Afghanistan's military? And have charity-run hospitals like MSF's now become "fair game" in the world's conflict zones?<br /><br />In "Surgical Strike", survivors including Australian Kathleen Thomas relive the terror and chaos inside the hospital as it was pounded by the gunship. <br /><br />And what of the aftermath? What is the public to make of shifting explanations from the US military which apologised for "a tragic mistake" but rejected calls for an independent inquiry or war crimes investigation? |
| Notes |
Closed captioning in English |
| Event |
Broadcast 2016-05-31 at 21:32:00 |
| Notes |
Classification: NC |
| Subject |
Taliban.
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Bombing, Aerial.
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Hospital patients -- Psychological aspects.
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Mass casualties.
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Women physicians -- Psychology.
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War crimes investigation.
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Americas.
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Afghanistan -- Kunduz.
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| Form |
Streaming video
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| Author |
Corcoran, Mark, host
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Esmat, Esmatullah, contributor
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Fernandez, Jeremy, contributor
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Kazim, Mohamad, contributor
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Liu, Joanne, contributor
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Molinie, Guilhem, contributor
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Nicholson, John, contributor
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Thomas, Kathleen, contributor
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Votel, Joseph, contributor
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