British aid worker killed in South Sudan

http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2015/feb/18/british-aid-worker-killed-south-sudan-carter-center

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A British aid worker was killed on Tuesday night in Juba, the capital of conflict-riven South Sudan, the Foreign Office has confirmed. The victim, who has not been named, is understood to have worked for the Carter Center, the NGO set up by the former US president Jimmy Carter.

A spokesman for the South Sudanese government said the man appeared to have been deliberately targeted as he returned to his compound in Juba.

“It has been confirmed that a British staff member in the Carter Center was killed, a crime we condemn in the strongest terms possible,” Ateny Wek Ateny told the AFP news agency.

“He was driving in his car, and when he arrived at his gate he got out of the car, then while walking he was shot.” Ateny added that police had “rounded up some people to get some clues”.

A spokeswoman for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office confirmed that a British national had been killed, adding the FCO was providing consular assistance to the victim’s family.

The Carter Center, which is based on Atlanta, Georgia, has yet to comment on the reports.

Civil war erupted in South Sudan – the world’s youngest country – in December 2013 when the president, Salva Kiir, accused his vice-president, Riek Machar, of plotting a coup.

Tens of thousands are thought to have died in the fighting, which has displaced 1.5 million people internally and forced another 480,000 into neighbouring countries. Although a much-feared famine was averted last year, the UN estimates 3.9 million people will face food insecurity in South Sudan in 2015, with 2.5 million becoming “severely” food insecure.

The dire humanitarian situation has brought many international NGOs to Juba and the rest of the country, as efforts continue to mitigate the effects of the war.

It is not the first time aid workers have been targeted. In August last year, six South Sudanese humanitarian workers were murdered in what appeared to be ethnically motivated attacks.

Toby Lanzer, the UN humanitarian coordinator in South Sudan, described those murders as the “most serious incident to affect the aid community at any time since South Sudan’s independence” in July 2011.