| Notes |
- Killed in Kabbul, Afganistan. Was working as aid worker forInternational Rescues comm.
From 100 Mile House, British Columbia.
Asia
Taliban ambush kills 3 more Western aid workers
(AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool)
Afghan paramedical staff carry the body of a foreign aid worker in a hospital in Pul-e-Alam in Logar province, Afghanistan, Wednesday, Aug. 13, 2008. Gunmen wielding assault rifles ambushed a U.S. aid organization's vehicle in the province south of Kabul on Wednesday, killing an American-Trinidadian aid worker along with a Canadian and a British-Canadian colleague, officials said.
By AMIR SHAH and FISNIK ABRASHI, The Associated Press
2008-08-13 22:20:18.0
Current rank: # 46 of 7,734
PUL-E-ALAM, Afghanistan -
Taliban fighters with assault rifles shredded a U.S. aid group's SUV with dozens of bullets Wednesday, killing three Western women and their Afghan driver amid an escalating militant onslaught against humanitarian workers in Afghanistan .
The ambush of two clearly marked aid vehicles on the main road south of Kabul was the latest in a record number of attacks on aid groups this year - a surge that has workers questioning if they can safely provide services in remote and dangerous areas where help is most needed.
The group whose workers were slain, the New York-based International Rescue Committee, announced it was suspending its Afghan humanitarian programs indefinitely.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the killings, saying its fighters attacked two vehicles of "the foreign invader forces."
"They were not working for the interests of Afghanistan and they belonged to those countries whose forces ... took Afghanistan's freedom," Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid told The Associated Press in a phone call from an undisclosed location.
Mujahid called the women spies, a frequent Taliban accusation against its targets.
The aid group identified the women killed in Logar province as Nicole Dial, 30, a dual Trinidadian-American citizen; Jacqueline (Jackie) Kirk, 40, of Outrement, Quebec; and Shirley Case, 30, of Williams Lake, British Columbia.
The 25-year-old driver, Mohammad Aimal, was from Kabul and had worked for the aid group since 2002.
"These extraordinary individuals were deeply committed to aiding the people of Afghanistan, especially the children who have seen so much strife," said George Rupp, president of the International Rescue Committee.
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said the attack was a reminder of the Taliban's brutality.
"This is obviously an outrage, a terribly brutal act, which I think should remind everybody of the brutality of the Taliban and the danger that everybody there faces," Harper said.
The women were driving from the eastern province of Paktia to Kabul in a white SUV marked with IRC stickers, said Abdullah Khan, deputy counterterrorism director in Logar.
Five men armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles stepped out of a village area and fired at the two aid vehicles, Khan said, citing a report from an Afghan IRC employee wounded in the second vehicle. The women's white SUV was hit by dozens of bullets, Khan said.
At the Pul-e-Alam hospital, IRC driver Abdurrahman Khan wept while helping load two of the victims' bodies onto the back of a truck.
"They were here helping Afghan people," he said. "They were not carrying weapons."
All four victims suffered multiple bullet wounds, Dr. Mir Mabub Shah said as three female Afghan nurses shrouded the three dead women in white cloth before putting them in wooden coffins.
With Wednesday's attack, at least 23 workers have been slain by militants in 2008, compared with 15 in all of 2007, according to a recent report from ANSO, a security group that works for aid organizations in the country.
ANSO said 2008 is on track to be the deadliest year for aid workers in Afghanistan since the U.S.-led invasion ended Taliban rule in late 2001.
"The car was clearly marked. They were clearly not military personnel and this is a major concern not only to us but to all those who are in humanitarian community in Afghanistan," said Aleem Siddique, a spokesman for the United Nations mission in Afghanistan.
The International Rescue Committee has been working in Afghanistan for 20 years. In the 1980s, the group provided medical aid to Afghan refugees fleeing into Pakistan during the Soviet occupation.
Since the ouster of the Taliban's hard-line Islamic regime, the group has also been involved with the National Solidarity Program, a community-based development program funded by the World Bank through the Afghan government and implemented by international aid groups.
Anna Husarska, a senior policy adviser for IRC, wrote in an opinion piece for Los Angeles Times in May that insurgents are attacking all those seen as helping the government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
"Since they oppose the current government, they also oppose those who work with it," she wrote. "And unfortunately, they don't differentiate among armed multinational forces, security contractors and humanitarian groups."
Kai Eide, the top U.N. official in Kabul, called the assault a "cowardly attack."
"The IRC provides lifesaving humanitarian assistance to those most affected by the conflict and it is reprehensible that such selfless individuals working for the most vulnerable communities should be deliberately targeted," Eide said.
The International Rescue Committee provides emergency relief and rehabilitation and works for protection of human rights and post-conflict development in countries around the world, according to its Web site.
Two Afghan IRC staff members were shot to death in Logar in July 2007 while working on the National Solidarity Program. Despite rising violence in Afghanistan, the group said in July that it was carrying on with its projects but had to reduce the levels of its work.
In other violence, NATO issued a statement saying its troops killed an Afghan man who failed to stop his vehicle as he approached their patrol in southern Helmand province Tuesday.
A roadside bomb in the same province killed five police officers and wounded four Tuesday, said Dawood Ahmadi, a spokesman for province's governor.
More than 3,200 people have died in insurgency-related violence this year, according to an Associated Press count based on Western and Afghan officials.
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Associated Press writers Jason Straziuso in Kabul and Noor Khan in Kandahar contributed to this report.
Slain B.C. aid worker remembered for her dedication
Jeff Bell, Canwest News Service
Published: Thursday, August 14
VICTORIA - Shirley Case, one of three foreign aid workers killed this week in Afghanistan, is being mourned by the people who knew her during her years in Victoria.
Case, a 30-year-old woman from Williams Lake, B.C., attended the University of Victoria and Royal Roads University. In 2000, she completed an undergraduate degree in leisure-service administration at UVic, then earned a master's degree in human security and peace-building at Royal Roads in 2005.
During her time at UVic, she had two stints in the UVic work co-operative program at Recreation Integration Victoria - an agency that promotes active lifestyles for people with disabilities.
Shirley Case with the International Rescue Committee was one of four aid workers killed in Afghanistan.
Shirley Case with the International Rescue Committee was one of four aid workers killed in Afghanistan.
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"Shirley came in and out of our lives over the years," said Doug Nutting, executive director at Recreation Integration Victoria. "She did her first co-op with us in '97. Later, she did work in Guyana at one point, and in Chad." She also did post-tsunami work in Indonesia in 2006.
Nutting said Case last visited the agency's Saanich, B.C., offices in early June, just before setting out for Afghanistan. News of her death has been hard to take.
"It was a real shock to be in the car and hear her name on CBC in relation to such a tragic incident," Nutting said.
Case had been in contact with agency staff following her June visit, he said.
"She sent us an e-mail after she got there, saying she was going to be working with an inclusive-education program, which focused on children with sensory disabilities and integrating them into community-based schools."
Case was in Afghanistan with the International Rescue Committee, and further explained in her e-mail that the IRC and other groups were intent on improving access to education by supplementing the existing network of government schools.
"So the idea is to build the capacity of the communities to have local schools, which will eventually, hopefully, become part of the Ministry of Education responsibilities," she wrote.
Nutting said Case successfully put Recreation Integration Victoria forward for a UVic Co-op Program award in 2003 with a nomination letter that emphasized how the agency influenced her and her experiences abroad. He pointed to the following passage from Case's letter: "I hope to influence change in the world, looking at community building and how it is impacted by youth, women and people living with disabilities."
Nutting added: "She was certainly living that."
Doug Nichols, the director of UVic's school of exercise science, physical and health education, also admired Case's social values.
"She had them while she was here, as well. That's what she was interested in here and she followed her heart. She was a very nice, enthusiastic, very dedicated person, and she could connect with people.
"This is one of those terribly sad things, and something that you don't expect. Here's somebody who's going over for humanitarian service, doing absolutely nothing wrong."
Royal Roads spokeswoman Stephanie Slater said the program from which Case graduated was started in 2003. The dedication of those involved in the program can take them to potentially dangerous places, she said, but Case's death is a tragic first.
"We have people from that program in hot spots all around the world," Slater said. "When someone is working with educational programs for disabled children, you don't ever expect that it's the type of thing that would lead to this."
© Victoria Times-Colonist 2008
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Abt 1978 - 2008 (~ 30 years)
