The World Peace Council expresses its deepest sorrow for the deaths of over 20 civilians in Kunduz, Afghanistan, killed by a US criminal airstrike against a hospital run by Doctors Without Borders, last weekend.

Besides civilians, a number of the victims were medical personnel working in the hospital, assisting the Afghans amid the escalated confrontation between the Afghan Army, the US and the Taliban, which took control over the city a few days before. This was a clear and blatant violation of the Geneva Conventions. At least three of the victims were children, who grow under constant impact of the foreign military presence and the destabilization of their country.

The subsequent statements given by the US and NATO's commanders are hypocritical and deserves our condemnation. They try to "pass on" responsibility to the Afghan Army after they committed to investigations on what they call "incident". This is obviously not enough and investigations would only be acceptable if indeed independent. Furthermore, their investigations cannot serve to evade any possibility of international prosecution.

We repudiate and denounce another war crime perpetrated by US imperialism, which since 2001 imposed again on the Afghan people, although in "coordination" with the local leadership, its bellicose and devastating intervention.

The world must hold the imperialist power accountable for maintaining its policies, which only result in the persistent destabilization and the disseminated violence, of which the main victim is the civilian population.

We demand an immediate end for the imperialists' interventionist actions and the war they sustain since 2001 on Afghanistan. We express our solidarity with the Afghan people in their struggle against terrorism and in their demand for the end of foreign intervention in their country.

Socorro Gomes
President of the World Peace Counci