Foreign aid worker shot in Aceh<\/p>\n
Nani Afrida and Apriadi Gunawan, The Jakarta Post, Banda Aceh\/Medan<\/p>\n
A foreign aid worker was shot and wounded on Wednesday night
\nwhile traveling to Lamno city, Aceh, in an incident that raised
\nsecurity concerns over tsunami relief work in the stricken
\nprovince.<\/p>\n
Eva Yeung, a Hong Kong aid worker, suffered a gun shot wound
\nto her neck and is currently undergoing intensive medical
\ntreatment at a Singapore hospital.<\/p>\n
The incident began when the 28-year-old aid worker, a relief
\ndelegate for the International Federation of Red Cross (IFRC) and
\nRed Crescent Societies, was traveling by car along with a driver
\nto Lamno city from Banda Aceh, said Aceh police spokesman Adj.
\nSr. Comr. Djoko Turochman.<\/p>\n
A group of unidentified armed persons tried to stop the Toyota
\nLand Cruiser in the Lamtuih subdistrict near Lamno city, but the
\ndriver in the marked Red Cross vehicle sped up. Shots were fired
\nfrom behind the car that resulted in the aid worker being hit in
\nher neck, said Turochman.<\/p>\n
Soon after the incident, the relief worker was transported to
\nthe Medicine San Frontier Hospital in Lamno and later on Thursday
\nafternoon, Eva, who has worked in Lamno since February this year,
\nwas transferred to a Singapore Hospital. The wound was not life
\nthreatening.<\/p>\n
Virgil Grandfield of the IFRC said the federation had
\nsuspended road travel from Banda Aceh to Meulaboh, 250 kilometers
\n(160 miles) to the south, following the incident. United Nations
\nworkers are forbidden from traveling by road at night outside
\ncities and towns in Aceh. Eva was the first aid worker to be shot
\nin Aceh.<\/p>\n
Senior police officer Turochman claimed that Indonesian
\nmilitary and police personnel were tracking down the perpetrators
\nbelieved to be members of the separatist Free Aceh Movement
\n(GAM). "GAM members often appear in the area," said another
\nofficer Comr. Puji Santoso, deputy chief of West Aceh police
\noverseeing Aceh Jaya regency.<\/p>\n
However, Free Aceh Movement (GAM) spokesman Sofyan Dawood
\nrejected charge that GAM was responsible for the attack, and
\ninstead blamed the TNI for the incident.<\/p>\n
"While GAM and the Acehnese are overjoyed to finally have a
\nlong-term foreign presence in Aceh ... the Indonesian government
\nand its military are horrified," he said, as quoted by Reuters.<\/p>\n
The Indonesian government and the rebels have been holding a
\nseries of peace talks in Helsinki to try to end the
\nthree-decades-old conflict, but clashes on the ground are still
\ncommon.<\/p>",
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