Suspected Islamic militants armed with guns and grenades stormed the offices of a Christian relief and development organization in northwest Pakistan on March 10, killing six aid workers and wounding eight others.
The gunmen besieged the offices of international humanitarian organization World Vision near Oghi in Mansehra district of the North-West Frontier Province.
Police and World Vision’s regional spokesman said the Pakistani staff members, including two women, were killed after up to 15 gunmen arrived in pickup trucks and began firing.
“They gathered all of us in one room,” World Vision administration officer Mohammad Sajid, who was in the office at the time, told Compass Direct News. “The gunmen, some of whom had their faces covered, also snatched our mobile phones. They dragged people one by one and shifted them to an adjacent room and shot and killed them.”
Senior police officer Waqar Ahmed blamed the attack on “the same people who are destroying our schools” — a reference to Taliban militants opposed to coeducation who have blown up hundreds of schools across the northwest in the past three years.
“Now they want to disturb relief work in quake-hit areas (resulting from the earthquake in October 2005),” Ahmed said. (CD)
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