UN Employee Killed in Afghanistan

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KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - A French United Nations worker was shot and killed Sunday by a man on a motorcycle who opened fire on her car. Her driver was wounded.


Bettina Goislard, 29, was the first U.N. staff member slain in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban regime, said David Singh, spokesman for the U.N. Mission in Afghanistan.

Singh said Goislard worked with the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees and was traveling in a vehicle clearly marked with the agency's letters, UNHCR.

The driver of her car, an Afghan national, was shot in the arm and was hospitalized in stable condition, Singh said.

The attack happened at a shopping bazaar in Ghazni, the capital of Ghazni province in central Afghanistan.

"Two men on a motorbike drove by her UNHCR vehicle in Ghazni bazaar, with the passenger rider opening fire at point-blank range on the vehicle," Singh said in Kabul, the Afghan capital. "One international staff member, a French female national, suffered fatal injuries and was pronounced dead on arrival at a hospital."

Shortly afterward, Afghan police fired at the motorcycle, injuring one of the two men and arresting them both, said Ahmad Zia Masood, a spokesman for Ghazni's governor.

Ghazni Gov. Asadullah Khan said the two men were Taliban fighters. He would not identify them by name but said in an interview: "They are in our custody. We are investigating them. Maybe we will arrest more Taliban."

Pro-Taliban forces have stepped up attacks in the region recently.

The U.N. refugee agency is "shocked and devastated" by the death of Goislard, said spokeswoman Delphine Marie.

"She was killed in cold blood," Marie said at UNHCR headquarters in Geneva.

Goislard was in charge of protection for returning refugees and displaced in Ghazni. Her body was being taken to Kabul.

"She helped the 55,000 displaced who returned to Ghazni and worked closely with the local authorities. She was much appreciated by the local community for her caring and tireless work," Marie said. "She adored Afghanistan and apparently had said that if anything ever happened to her she wanted to be buried in Afghanistan."

The United Nations has about 800 international staff members in Afghanistan where it also employs several thousand Afghans.

Marie said it was too early to say what UNHCR would do now, but there would obviously be "a lot of discussions and debate" about action.

It was the first fatal attack on a U.N. worker in Afghanistan since the Taliban regime was ousted by the U.S.-led coalition two years ago, Singh said.

Singh said all U.N. staff members in Kandahar in south Afghanistan, Gardez east of Ghazni, and Jalalabad east of Kabul have been instructed to reduce their movements and send their local staff home as a precaution.



(Copyright 2003 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)