DR KATHLEEN THOMAS: "It had a very particular 'VOO-PAH' sort of noise. It vibrated in your chest, it vibrated the whole building. If they're going to bomb me, we're going to die and that's... that will be the end".

TEXT: 2.08 am October 3, 2015. Kunduz, Afghanistan. A US AC-130 gunship attacks a hospital run by international humanitarian group 'MSF' - Medecins Sans Frontieres.

DR KATHLEEN THOMAS: "It was just overwhelming fear. They were calling out my name and begging for morphine. 'Dr Kathleen, Dr Kathleen, please, please give us some morphine'. And so I certainly considered, you know, doing what they do in the movies, calling my loved ones and saying I love you and I'm, you know.... Sorry".

DR ESMAT: "When we run out they target us and they shoot us. And when we returned back, there was nothing. Just there was... bones on the beds".

GENERAL JOHN NICHOLSON: [press conference] "I grieve with you for your loss and suffering, and humbly and respectfully ask for your forgiveness".

DR JOANNE LIU: [MSF President at UN Security Council] "Medicine must not be a deadly occupation. Patients must not be attacked or slaughtered in their beds. Stop these attacks!".

DR KATHLEEN THOMAS: "It's just all a big blur of horrendous grief at what had been done and just an inability to understand or even try and think why this would have happened".

TITLE: Surgical Strike

DR KATHLEEN THOMAS: "My name is Kathleen Thomas. I am an Australian-trained doctor, who's currently working in intensive care as a trainee and I've just recently returned from Afghanistan on my first mission with MSF".

GFX: Kunduz, Afghanistan

DR KATHLEEN THOMAS: "Kunduz, is a province in a city in the north of Afghanistan. It was a stronghold for the Taliban for a long time. As the US has pulled back, the Taliban have begun to exert some more control in the area. When I arrived in Kunduz my counterpart from whom I was taking over was at the airport with all of his luggage and we had about a five minute handover on the tarmac where he was supposed to tell me everything about my job. Clearly it was a very brief handover.

The Kunduz Trauma Centre, which was also referred to as KTC, was a very busy hospital. It was a ninety-three bed facility which had a busy emergency department where they saw over a hundred patients per day. Every day we would see numerous patients come in with different, horrific injuries, traumatic amputations of legs, arms, big chunks of bodies taken out, and then on top of that there would be lots of penetrating trauma, so gunshots to the chest, lots of head trauma.

My job there was the supervisor of the intensive care unit and the emergency department. In the emergency department there were eleven Afghani doctors and in the ICU there were five to six Afghani doctors. So my role was to supervise them clinically and also to teach them.

MSF worked extremely hard and they did ongoing discussions with all the local parties to ensure that everyone knew who we were, what we were, that we would treat everyone equally and that within the walls of our hospital, it was a safe zone for either side of the conflict. On top of that, they have a very strict no weapons policy within the hospital. So that is clearly displayed outside and every person or patient that enters the hospital is checked by security".

TEXT: September 27-28, 2015

DR KATHLEEN THOMAS: "I believe it was Sunday night, we noted that there was a lot of heavy artillery being fired and that was coming probably from the Afghan military and that was happening throughout the whole night. But about two o'clock in the morning is when all of us in the house were awoken by the sounds of warfare that we had never heard before.

The Taliban, during the Eid holiday, had made their way disguised into the city and some of them were taking refuge in people's houses. When this attack to take over Kunduz happened, they kind of emerged from within the city as opposed to coming from outside the city. So they were able to quickly overwhelm the Afghan forces who were based in the city and force them to retreat and I believe they retreated to the airport - but certainly within, you know less than twenty four hours, twelve hours maybe, the city was in the control of the Taliban".

CNN: "Afghan security forces stretched to the limit as the Taliban seize control of most if not all of Kunduz, storming the town from three sides at dawn".

ABC RADIO: "For the first time since the Taliban was overthrown in Afghanistan fourteen years ago, the militant group has retaken a major centre".

CNN: "The losses in Kunduz reflecting poorly on the NATO trained government forces and embarrassing the Afghan President, Ashraf Ghani. Both sides they say taking casualties".

DR KATHLEEN THOMAS: "We had over a hundred and thirty patients arrive within a few hours of, on the first day. So we were completely overwhelmed. They were all over the emergency department, spilling into the hallways and the ED doctors and the surgeons and the nursing staff were all just doing the best that they could to get through and prioritise the patients that needed help more urgently than others".

TEXT: US Special Forces rush to assist Afghan troops. At Kunduz Police HQ they are surrounded by Taliban fighters. Over four days and nights, 22 US airstrikes are called in.

DR KATHLEEN THOMAS: "The co-ordinator of the hospital at the time had interactions with the Taliban who came in and essentially announced that they had taken control of the city, that they were now in charge of the city and wanted to just establish a relationship with us. From what I understand they were quite respectful at the time. They acknowledged our rules and never disobeyed them.

The day before the attack, that evening there was a lull, and that was the first time there had been a real big lull in the conflict. It just seemed like everything had sort of calmed down and I noticed that there were even kids flying kites. Because it was calm, it was my first, my first night that was calm and I decided I needed to take that opportunity and get some sleep. I checked in with the emergency department, checked in with the intensive care department and then came back to where we were sleeping which was in the safe room.

The safe room is a room that normally functions as a meeting room. I think it's made of some of reinforced concrete so maybe fifty to a hundred metres from the main building itself. Midnight was the last time I was outside and I remember thinking, 'Wow, it feels really calm'.

About two o'clock we were very rudely awoken by an extremely loud sound. It was nothing like we had heard before and I think at this point we had heard a lot of close bomb blasts and other explosions - but this was completely different. All I could hear from one of the nurses, and I could hear him absolutely hysterical, just yelling through the phone, crying, sobbing, you know, incomprehensible pretty much but certainly screaming that there were injured patients".

TEXT: In Kabul, MSF Director Guilhem Molinie is immediately alerted. He urgently contacts US military officers.

GUILHEM MOLINIE: [MSF Director] "It took us around ten minutes to understand that we were attacked by a plane and as soon as it was clear then, I started to contact the NATO because they were the first possible army that would have deployed war planes".

TEXT EXCHANGE: MSF: Ok. Please make sure airstrikes stop we sustained heavy casualties. OPERATION RESOLUTE SUPPORT: I will do my best. I am praying for you all.

GUILHEM MOLINIE: "The initial response of NATO or US was a bit difficult to understand who I was talking with, was surprised".

DR KATHLEEN THOMAS: "We opened the door and that was the most memorable moment for me, looking up and seeing this figure standing at the door, who was essentially, who was a nurse from the ER, I recognised him immediately. His left arm had been almost completely amputated and was just hanging by a small thread of tissue. He had, he was covered in debris which looked like dust. All of his clothes were in tatters. He had major injuries all over his arms, his face was bleeding and there was a big piece of metal sticking out of his back".

TEXT: The gunship fires 211 shells at the hospital - without interruption - then departs.

DR KATHLEEN THOMAS: "I think it lasted about an hour, from what I can remember, from about two to about three".

TEXT: The Pentagon claims the attack lasts 30 minutes and 8 seconds.

DR KATHLEEN THOMAS: "At some point three was, patients started arriving in the safe room. I think, yeah the gunship must have left at this point. Most of them were being carried by other staff members and as they all came through, it was just one after the other, after the other of staff that I knew, which was just extremely shocking and within minutes, the whole room that we were in was totally full and overflowing and there were patients lining up. I didn't want to keep dry-retching, like I had earlier, now it was just about okay, what's the next step? How do we get out of here and what are we going to do with all these patients and these dead bodies?

Suddenly we heard that there was an ambulance outside ready to take patients. So we began identifying who was the most urgent, who needed to be transferred immediately. We carried them outside and loaded them into the ambulance who then drove them to the nearest hospital. It was daybreak. The sun was just, just starting to come up. That was the first time I left time I left the building was when I was carrying, helping to carry out some of the injured survivors and at this point is when I saw the hospital itself". [very upset]

JEREMY FERNANDEZ: [ABC newsreader] "The United Nations says the bombing of a hospital in the Afghan city of Kunduz may constitute a war crime. The US President has offered his deepest condolences in what appears to have been an American airstrike".

TEXT: 14 MSF staff, 24 patients and 4 carers are killed. 37 others are wounded.

DR ESMATULLAH ESMAT: "My name is Dr Esmat, I'm a general surgeon - and five years ago I joined with MSF. We were busy in surgery. We hear sound of blasting and we said, 'what happened?' Then we hear another sound and then the whole building, the glasses, the iron, everything was collapsed. It was continuous bombarding. One doctor, two nurse, one cleaner, who died in front of us in this place. This department, this is our ICU (Intensive Care Unit). All eight patients die. And when we returned back, there was nothing. Just there was bones on the beds. No one was able to run out from the ICU from the whole building because when we run out they target us and they shoot us".

[walking into safe room] "And some of our staff was in this room".

"We did primary first aid. We had a small kit in this area. We used this kit but it was not enough for the whole patients. It was very bad time. We cannot forget this time. And at that time there was a patient. He was on the table and he was under anaesthesia. They were busy in this room then it was targeted by an airplane. You can see the big hole in the wall. Then everything was fallen down on them. The patient was not able to go out because he was under anaesthesia. After some while he died on the table".

TEXT: Baynazar Mohammad Nazar. Age 43. His body lies unclaimed for a week before being identified by his family and buried. [daughter crying by his grave] The US offers compensation: $3,000 to each of the wounded. $6,000 for each person killed. Baynazar Mohammad is survived by a widow and four children.

SAMIULLAH: [Baynazar's eldest son] "It's getting harder and harder for us. My brother and my sister are always crying. We just live. We received 400,000 Afghanis as compensation. Nothing will compensate for the loss of my father. My father had a special place in our family".

TEXT: It takes 2 weeks for Afghan and US troops to recapture all of Kunduz. The battle is reported around the world.

EURO NEWS: "Amid reports of up to 200 insurgents being killed, heavy fighting is said to be continuing on the outskirts of the city. A fully victory would mark a huge relief for Afghan President Ashraf Ghani who faced calls for his resignation over the loss of Kunduz".

TEXT: Afghan officials initially claim the hospital attack was deliberate and justified.

INTERIOR MINISTRY SPOKESMAN: "10 to 15 terrorists were hiding in the hospital last night and they came under attack. Well, they are killed, all of the terrorists were killed. But we also lost doctors. We will do everything to make sure that doctors are safe and they can do their jobs".

DR KATHLEEN THOMAS: [MSF] "I mean that was absolute bullshit. There was no fighters in the hospital, there was no one armed in the hospital. There was certainly no Taliban that were using it as some sort of base. So it was clear that that information was a blatant lie".

TEXT: The official US explanation changes 4 times in the first 4 days. Allegations emerge that Afghan troops provided false intelligence, prompting the attack. But the US takes full responsibility, apologising for "a tragic mistake".

GENERAL JOHN NICHOLSON: [March 22, 2016] "As Commander, I wanted to come to Kunduz personally and stand before the families and the people of Kunduz to deeply apologise for the events which destroyed the hospital and caused the death of the hospital staff, the patients and their families".

DR KATHLEEN THOMAS: "The fact that the Afghan military and the US changed the story multiple times in the first few days really set off alarm bells for me and I think everyone involved. It's very difficult to then believe what they released, when you've already got this, this background of a story that was changing and was completely inaccurate".

TEXT: In the months leading up to the airstrike, MSF's neutral role in treating Taliban wounded angered Afghan security forces.

GUILHEM MOLINIE: [MSF Director] "We had some peaks of tension because of the conflict we were treating everybody - so ex combatant from the government, ex combatant from the Taliban so obviously when we had to, for example, to cross the front lines, we had some moments of tension with ambulances that were stopped and searched".

TEXT: In Kunduz today, MSF's neutrality policy remains a source of tension.

MOHAMAD KAZIM: [Kunduz Police Commander] "The good thing about MSF was that they provided treatment to all the public especially ordinary civilians who are really vulnerable, the victims of war, the civilians who've been wounded or involved in traffic accidents. But we oppose that they were treating the Taliban. But this is up to them - that's their agenda. It's not up to us to judge them. But most of the enemy casualties received treatment at the MSF hospital. And now there is a massive MSF clinic in Chardara (near Kunduz) and they provide treatment for all the Taliban casualties".

TEXT: The Pentagon. 7 months after the attack.

GENERAL JOSEPH VOTEL: [press conference] "Today US Central Command is releasing the results of the investigation into the strike on the Doctors without Borders Trauma Centre, in Kunduz City, Afghanistan".

TEXT: Of the 3000 page investigation, just 700 heavily redacted pages are released.

GENERAL JOSEPH VOTEL: "Importantly, the investigation concluded that the personnel involved did not know they were striking a medical facility. I want to emphasise that the trauma centre was a protected facility and was on a no strike list. Our forces did not receive fire from the trauma centre during the incident, nor did the investigation find that insurgents were using it as a base for operations".

TEXT: The report details a cascade of failures. MSF repeatedly provided the GPS co-ordinates of the hospital. But the AC-130 took off without loading data flagging the hospital on a "No-Strike" list.

GENERAL JOSEPH VOTEL: "Their ability to receive this information while in flight was lost when one of their satellite radios failed. The aircraft was fired on by a surface to air missile, and subsequently moved several miles away from the city centre".

TEXT: The National Directorate of Security HQ was overrun by Taliban fighters. A US ground controller ordered an attack on the building. But the gunship's targeting system malfunctioned. For an hour the crew questioned if they were looking at the correct target - then opened fire.

GENERAL JOSEPH VOTEL: "The intended target was an insurgent-controlled site which was approximately 400 metres from the Doctors Without Borders Trauma Centre. The aircrew mistakenly believed that the trauma centre was the Taliban control building".

DR KATHLEEN THOMAS: "It was a very very clearly marked building but it was also a building that was a unique structure in terms of the rest of the city. If it was a series of mistakes this was a series of reckless decisions that were made on all levels, including at a very, very high level and if that's the case then to me that's gross negligence and I believe that gross negligence could potentially constitute as a war crime".

GENERAL JOSEPH VOTEL: "The investigation concluded that certain personnel failed to comply with the rules of engagement in the law of armed conflict. However, the investigation did not conclude that these failures amounted to a war crime. The label war crimes is typically reserved for intentional acts - intentionally targeting civilians or intentionally targeting protected objects or locations. The investigation identified 16 US service members whose conduct warranted consideration for appropriate administrative or disciplinary action, including a General officer. The actions included suspension and removal from command, letters of reprimand, formal counselling and extensive retraining".

TEXT: MSF rejects the neutrality of the US military investigation.

DR JOANNE LIU: [President MSF] "They have done an investigation, they have done an internal investigation, a military investigation. We wanted an impartial and independent investigation. We strongly believe that you cannot be the perpetrators as well as the judge and the jury".

TEXT: 2015, 75 MSF-supported facilities in conflict zones were attacked. MSF President Joanne Liu addresses the United Nations Security Council.

DR JOANNE LIU: "In Afghanistan, the Central African Republic, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Ukraine and Yemen, hospitals are routinely bombed, raided, looted or burned to the ground. Medical personnel are threatened, patients are shot in their beds".

TEXT: Syria 2011-16. 250 medical facilities attacked. 730 medical staff killed. Source: Physicians for Human Rights.

Yemen 2015. 59 attacks against 34 hospitals. Source: UN.

DR JOANNE LIU: "You are charged with protecting peace and security. Yet, four of the five permanent members of this Council have, to varying degrees, been associated with coalition responsible for attacks on health structures over the last year. These include the NATO-led Coalition in Afghanistan, the Saudi-led Coalition in Yemen, the Russia-backed, Syrian-led Coalition. You therefore must live up to your extraordinary responsibilities and set an example for all states. I repeat: stop these attacks".

TEXT: The UN Security Council unanimously passes a resolution condemning attacks on hospitals and medical staff in war zones.

DR JOANNE LIU: "The discussion here today cannot amount to empty rhetoric. This resolution cannot end up like so many others, including those passed on Syria over the past five years - routinely violated with impunity".

[discussing Kunduz] "We haven't resumed our work in Kunduz and we are not able to take a decision today because we're not able to get the guarantee that people will respect our medical facility. So we will not reopen until we are able to strike this deal with all the stakeholders in Northern Afghanistan".

TEXT: 3 year old Shaesta survived the attack on MSF Kunduz. She was recovering from a leg amputation after an airstrike on her home.

AZMARAI: [Shaesta's father] "The doctors have all left. The doctors told us you can't get medicine - you'll have to go somewhere else. You can go to (the city of) Mazar e Sharif".

ANISA: [Shaesta's mother] "Imagine how she's suffering when she sees other girls. She is frustrated. The other kids are walking. Now she's lost weight because she's sick - the last few days she's seen other girls running around... she's crying and they pick her up".

DR KATHLEEN THOMAS: "One of the great frustrations I have now and MSF has is that we now have a situation where in Kunduz there is no functional trauma centre in all of northern Afghanistan. We know that patients now cannot access the care that they need. They're having to travel to Kabul in order to access the same care and patients are most certainly dying because they cannot get to care quick enough".

AZMARAI: [Shaesta's father] "I've borrowed money from people. I've sold my wife's ring and bangles and I've collected about 230,000 Afghanis to get my daughter to Pakistan. I'm just a street-seller - a labourer - this was the only hospital that was helping the poor people in the area".

DR KATHLEEN THOMAS: "They're still suffering a lot and, you know, I have the privilege of being able to come back to a country where it's safe and peaceful and I have no major drama in my life and these guys are left behind. They're, they're stuck there. They can't leave, they can't get on a plane and be evacuated to safety. They have to deal with the ongoing consequences of this conflict".