UN staffer shot dead in NW Pakistan

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(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-07-16 16:46

ISLAMABAD: Gunmen shot dead a UN official and wounded a guard at a refugee camp near Pakistan's northwestern city of Peshawar on Thursday.

Passengers are seen through the glass of a shattered bus stop after supporters of the militant organization Sipah-e-Sahaba demonstrated in the streets of Karachi July 15, 2009. [Agencies]

Zil-e-Usman, a Pakistani working for the UN High Commissioner For Refugees (UNHCR), was attacked by gunmen outside the agency's field office on the outskirts of the capital of North West Frontier Province.

"It was a kidnapping attempt," UNHCR spokeswoman Amena Ali Kamal said.

"They attacked him from different directions as he came out of our field office in Kacha Gari refugee camp and he was hit several times in the crossfire and later succumbed to his wounds in hospital."

Insurgents have targeted foreign diplomats and aid workers in Peshawar before, and last month carried out a suicide bomb attack that devastated the city's top hotel and killed at least nine people, including two foreign UN workers.

The UNHCR is one of the agencies at the forefront of relief efforts to help more than 2 million people displaced by fighting between security forces and Taliban insurgents in the Swat valley and other parts of the northwest.

Many of the families staying at Kacha Gari hail from Pakistan's Bajaur tribal region, though the camp was originally established for Afghan refugees who had fled the conflict in their homeland.