News: Five WFP drivers killed in Sudan
Five truck drivers delivering food for the U.N. World Food Program have been attacked and killed in Sudan over the past three weeks.
Four of the five were killed in southern Sudan and one was killed in the western Darfur region.
In the latest attack, two WFP-contracted drivers were shot dead in southern Sudan on Monday after returning from delivering food supplies.
Previously, three other WFP workers were killed in Sudan late March. (Full)
More posts on The Road, about Darfur and Sudan.
Update April 18 2008: "Attacks force U.N. to cut Darfur food relief": In the past three and a half months, 60 WFP-contracted food aid trucks have been hijacked in Darfur only. 39 trucks are still misssing and 29 drivers still unaccounted for.
Picture courtesy WFP
Peter. Flemish, European, aid worker, expeditioner, sailor, traveller, husband, father, friend, nutcase. Not necessarily in that order.
2 comments:
Does Wfp help the family of those workers (no life can be paied with money, however the loss during your work should be covered by some sort of insurance, although in most part of Africa this sort of subject is practically unknown..)? Is it too high cost to invest in security?
All UN staff members, including local staff members in Africa, have a "malicious acts insurance" which covers the staff members against harm (or death). In case a staff member dies in the line of duty, the family is paid.
But, as you said, no loss of life, no loss of a parent, a husband or wife, a brother or a sister, can ever be compensated financially.
While we work in more and more dangerous environments, the risks becomes higher and higher, and so does the cost of 'security'.. Have a look at this post on this subject.
It is a very tough call to make when deciding "the risk is now too high, we pull out".
It is a very sad trend to see more and more colleagues in our line of work dying due to senseless violence.
P.
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