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Christian NGO 'not angry' with aid worker killers

Finance | Lucy Harvey | 21 Oct 2008

Colleagues of British aid worker Gayle Williams who was shot dead in Kabul earlier this week by Taliban insurgents say they are praying for her killers.

Williams, 34 (pictured), was shot dead on Monday 20 October by two men on a motorcycle as she walked to the office of the Christian charity Serve (Serving Emergency Relief and Vocational Enterprises).

She had been working with the group for two and a half years, helping to rehabilitate disabled people into the community.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack soon afterwards, accusing Williams, who had dual nationality after being brought up in South Africa, of "spreading Christianity".

Today Mike Lyth, Serve's Carlisle-based chairman of the board, told Charity News Alert: "We are not angry with the people who have done this, we are sorry for them and we are praying for them. That's what Gayle would want us to do.

"It's a desperate situation when they have to prey on young women."

Future operations

The Serve office in Afghanistan is currently closed, and a decision will be made about its future in the next week.

Lyth said: "We are not pulling out of the country, that decision has not been made. But obviously we are going to change the way we operate. We have 200 Afghan staff quite capable of continuing their work but it may be that we operate in a slightly different way in the future."

Williams’ killing has been condemned by the Afghan government, United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon and the White House.

Since her death the Afghan president Hamid Karzai has warned foreign nationals and aid workers to limit their movements and be vigilant.

This year 29 aid workers have been killed in Afghanistan, six of them foreign nationals.

Reviewing security

Other aid organisations in Afghanistan are also reviewing their security arrangements in light of the killing.

Matt Wilson, deputy programme director at War Child, said if the situation became worse, the charity would consider pulling out of the country.

He said: “We are monitoring the situation, and are reviewing whether we need to be in Kabul.

“If it became much worse, then we would look at pulling back to somewhere like Turkmenistan and continue our work.”

But Christian Aid has said it had no plans to pull out of Afghanistan.

“We work with local partners where the need is greatest, irrespective of race or religion,” said John Davison, head of media.

“This was apparently accepted by the Taliban when they constituted the Afghan government and we were able to work inside the country.”

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