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.