Mazar-i-Sharif (Afghanistan) (AFP) – A foreign physiotherapist working for the Red Cross in northern Afghanistan was shot and killed Monday by a wheelchair-bound patient, in the latest attack on the international charity.
The woman was shot inside the aid group’s orthopaedic centre in the city of Mazar-i-Sharif, the International Committee of the Red Cross spokesman Thomas Glass told AFP.
The victim, whose nationality has not been released, was taken to the NATO military base hospital at Camp Marmal where she died from her wounds.
Two people have been arrested over the deadly attack, including the 21-year-old shooter who police said was a “regular patient”.
“He had hidden the pistol in his wheelchair which he used to shoot the victim,” police spokesman Shir Jan Durrani told AFP.
It was the latest deadly assault on the Red Cross in northern Afghanistan, where Taliban and Islamic State militants have been terrorising the local population.
Most of the charity’s programmes in the volatile north have been on hold since February after six Afghan employees of the ICRC were shot dead when their convoy was ambushed in Jowzjan province.
Two of their colleagues were abducted and only released by their captors last week.
No militant group claimed responsibility for the abduction or killings, but Jowzjan police had blamed local IS jihadists.
Last December a Spanish Red Cross employee was abducted when workers from the charity were travelling between Mazar-i-Sharif and the neighbouring Taliban hotbed of Kunduz.
He was released several weeks later.
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