The night of 2–3 October was marked by an event that shook the entire world. In the Afghan city of Kunduz, an air strike destroyed a hospital managed by Médecins Sans Frontières, killing twenty-two people. According to the international association, which was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1999, the bombs were dropped by the American air force — that is, by the country of President Barack Obama, himself a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, in 2009.

Neither Obama himself nor the Pentagon, however, spoke explicitly of US military involvement: the White House described the incident as "a tragic accident." "On behalf of the American people," the president explained, without going into the specifics, "I extend my deepest condolences to the victims." The US Defense Department then entrusted its comment to the grim formula of "collateral damage" (the words of Colonel Brian Tribus, spokesman for US forces in Afghanistan), in connection with an anti-Taliban operation conducted in the vicinity.

Yet, according to MSF, the bombing "lasted 45 minutes, and did not appear accidental at all: an aircraft repeatedly targeted the same building with multiple strikes." A sequence of events that leaves little room for interpretation, and one that has provoked the indignation of the UN, which has already raised the possibility of a "war crime." At the same time, in a statement published on the evening of 4 October, MSF Director General Christopher Stokes condemned the declarations made by Afghan authorities, according to which some Taliban fighters had been hiding inside the hospital — the reason said to have led to the bombing: "These statements confirm that a functioning hospital was intentionally razed to the ground. This is therefore not collateral damage."

The French newspaper L'Obs reached Lajos Zoltan Jecs, a nurse who was on site at the time of the bombing. His account is harrowing: "I was paralysed — I couldn't even help an injured colleague. After a few minutes, we came out of the 'safe room' where we had taken shelter and headed towards one of the buildings that was on fire. I don't have the words to describe what I saw: in the intensive care unit, six patients were burning alive in their beds. We performed emergency surgery on one of our doctors, but he didn't make it either."

US Secretary of Defence Ashton Carter has promised a thorough inquiry into what happened: the conclusions will come in a few months. In the meantime, what remains is the chronicle of a disaster. The care centre was evacuated by the NGO, which announced its closure. The facilities are now "unusable," and the most critical patients have been transferred. Behind the volunteer doctors who are leaving Kunduz in these hours, nothing remains but a pile of rubble.