NGO Staff Killed in Chechnya, Zanzibar

Published August 15, 2009 @ 10:25AM PT

A quick update on NGO fatalities over the past few weeks:

1. Patronus Analytical reports that the head of a Russian NGO called Save the Generation was killed in Chechnya along with her husband.

According to Patronus Analytical: "This is the second murder of prominant NGO workers in Chechnya in less than a month. Natalia Estemirova of Memorial Human Rights Center was murdered by unidentified gunmen on 15 July."

2. Also from Patronus Analytical - a volunteer aid worker with the Irish NGO Camara was "killed during an apparent mugging and robbery in Zanzibar last week."

Overall, 74 NGO staff have been killed this year. The most dangerous country for aid workers is Afghanistan, where fifteen have died.

As for other not-so-uplifting news - according to IRIN, "[t]he fate of two female aid workers kidnapped by gunmen four weeks ago [in Darfur] remains unknown." The two women work for the Irish NGO GOAL.

Rebels also kidnapped fifteen Red Cross staff in Yemen last week.

Our thoughts and prayers are with their families and colleagues.

To end on a positive note - four NGO staff and two pilots kidnapped last November in Somalia have just been released.

[Photo of Grozny, Chechnya from dziadek od orzechow's photostream on flickr]

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Author

Michael has worked for NGOs in Afghanistan, across east and central Africa, and Iraq. Prior to going overseas, he worked on a project providing assistance to the United Nations on the application of International Humanitarian Law to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.