Gunmen kill Red Cross workers

Press, 22 May 1978, Page 9

Gunmen kill Red Cross workers

NZPA Nyamaropa (Rhodesia) Two of three International Red Cross workers shot dead on a dusty road in a rugged and remote border area of eastern Rhodesia were apparently executed after being ordered by gunmen out of their white van, bearing Red Cross symbols on each side and on its roof. It was believed to be the fir apparently deliberate killing of Red Cross workers in a war zone since World War 11.

! “It is awful. .. It is pure. 11 murder,” said the distraught, j I International Red Cross: I chief in . Rhodesia, Francois | s I Perez, as he gazed at the 11 blood-soaked bodies of the t! two Swiss nationals and I j their black Rhodesian inter- ; I preter. The three were shot II in the back. j! The three were ambushed | about 4 p.m. on Thursday . I (Rhodesian time), [ (it was officially estimated from reports of | explosions. They died Bkm I | from the Mozambique bor-l ’ der, while heading back to I t base at the garrison town of j . Umtali through an area heavily infiltrated by guer- . rillas. They had been check- ! ing medical supply needs at .(a black clinic near the tiny ! i administrative and police ( centre of Nyamaropa, Mr Perez said. i Mr Perez, who helped . Government troops and the . police move the bodies as reporters watched, said it I was the first apparently deliberate murder of Red (Cross workers he recalled' since World War 11. Earlier this month a Red Cross worker was killed ac- : (cidentally in Lebanon. A military communique blamed the killings on black nationalist guerrillas. The deaths drew immediate con-: demnation from Church I leaders and from several! black members of Rhodesia’s! multi-racial interim Govern-1 ment, due to guide Rhodesia! to black rule within seven! months. The agreement is; not recognised by the Patri-I [ otic Front guerrilla move-1 ment.