JP/1/NGO

JP/1/NGO

Hong Kong aid worker shot in Aceh

Nani Afrida and Apriadi Gunawan
The Jakarta Post/Banda Aceh/Medan

A foreign aid worker was shot and wounded on Wednesday night
while traveling to Lamno city, Aceh, in an incident that raised
security concerns over tsunami relief work in the stricken
province.

Eva Yeung, a Hong Kong aid worker, suffered a gun shot wound
to her neck and is currently undergoing intensive medical
treatment at a Singapore hospital.

The incident began when the 28-year-old aid worker, a relief
delegate for the International Federation of Red Cross (IFRC) and
Red Crescent Societies, was traveling by car along with a driver
to Lamno city from Banda Aceh, said Aceh police spokesman Adj.
Sr. Comr. Djoko Turochman.

A group of unidentified armed persons tried to stop the Toyota
Land Cruiser in the Lamtuih subdistrict near Lamno city, but the
driver in the marked Red Cross vehicle sped up. Shots were fired
from behind the car that resulted in the aid worker being hit in
her neck, said Turochman.

Soon after the incident, the relief worker was transported to
the Medicine San Frontier Hospital in Lamno and later on Thursday
afternoon, Eva, who has worked in Lamno since February this year,
was transferred to a Singapore Hospital. The wound was not life
threatening.

Virgil Grandfield of the IFRC said the federation had
suspended road travel from Banda Aceh to Meulaboh, 250 kilometers
(160 miles) to the south, following the incident. United Nations
workers are forbidden from traveling by road at night outside
cities and towns in Aceh. Eva was the first aid worker to be shot
in Aceh.

Senior police officer Turochman claimed that Indonesian
military and police personnel were tracking down the perpetrators
believed to be members of the separatist Free Aceh Movement
(GAM). "GAM members often appear in the area," said another
officer Comr. Puji Santoso, deputy chief of West Aceh police
overseeing Aceh Jaya regency.

However, Free Aceh Movement (GAM) spokesman Sofyan Dawood
rejected charge that GAM was responsible for the attack, and
instead blamed the TNI for the incident.

"While GAM and the Acehnese are overjoyed to finally have a
long-term foreign presence in Aceh ... the Indonesian government
and its military are horrified," he said, as quoted by Reuters.

The Indonesian government and the rebels have been holding a
series of peace talks in Helsinki to try to end the
three-decades-old conflict, but clashes on the ground are still
common.