"Patients burned to death as they lay in their beds"

Kabul: One of the Doctors Without Borders staff who survived the Kunduz hospital bombing recounts the horror of Saturday afternoon.  Heman Nagarathnam says the planes repeatedly circled overhead during that time. “There was a pause, and then more bombs hit. This happened again and again. When I made it out from the office, the main hospital building was engulfed in flames,” Nagarathnam said according to the MSF statement. “Those people that could, had moved quickly to the building’s two bunkers to seek safety. But patients who were unable to escape burned to death as they lay in their beds.” [caption id=“attachment_2454026” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  The Kunduz hospital in flames/ AP[/caption] Fighting raged throughout the day, and at around 2 p.m., the Taliban seized the medical compound, according to Sarwar Hussaini, the spokesman for the provincial police chief. “Fighting is continuing between Afghan security forces and the Taliban,” he said. Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid had earlier issued a statement saying there were no Taliban fighters in the hospital at the time of the bombing. He also accused Afghanistan’s intelligence service of deliberately directing airstrikes on the hospital. Adil Akbar, a doctor at the trauma center who was on duty at the time, told AP that the operating theater, emergency room and other parts of the hospital complex had been hit in the bombing. The clinic is a sprawling facility with numerous buildings situated in the east of the city, in a residential area close to the local office of the NDS intelligence service. “I managed to escape after the attack but I know that most of the staff and even some of the patients are missing,” he said. AP