Aid worker killed in Senegal
2006-09-02 13:42
Geneva - A Swiss-American working for the international Red Cross in Senegal was killed when the vehicle she was in struck "a mine or some form of unexploded ordnance", the agency said on Saturday.
Jeanette Fournier, 50, had been conducting a survey of the needs of people displaced by armed clashes in the Casamance region along with three colleagues when the incident happened on Friday.
One of the colleagues, a Ukrainian, was badly wounded in the incident, but his life was not in danger said Marco Jimenez, a spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva.
The two other Red Cross workers, both Senegalese, received minor injuries, he said.
"It was most likely a mine," said Jimenez, as the region, which is in the southwest of the country, is littered with unexploded mines from fighting between soldiers from neighbouring Guinea-Bissau and Casamance militants, which ended in 2004.
The ICRC said Fournier had been working for the organisation since 1980 and had previously been posted to Thailand, Cambodia, Pakistan, Zimbabwe and Indonesia.
- AP