U.N. worker shot in Afghanistan
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A UNHCR worker boards a car in Kabul, Afghanistan, Sunday.
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(CNN) -- A 29-year-old worker for the U.N. refugee agency was shot and killed Sunday in Afghanistan when gunmen opened fire on her clearly marked vehicle, the U.N. high commissioner for refugees said.
Bettina Goislard, a French national, was pronounced dead on arrival at a hospital in the city of Ghazni, where the incident took place.
"This is yet another dastardly assault on an innocent humanitarian worker," said High Commissioner Ruud Lubbers in a statement issued in Geneva. He said the U.N. agency was suspending its activities in Ghazni province and will be conducting a review of its work in Afghanistan.
The agency said bullets fired by two men on a motorcycle hit both Goislard and her driver, Abdul Salam Sadid, who was in stable condition with a bullet wound in his arm. Another local staff member, Ali Mohammad, escaped the attack unharmed.
The two attackers have been arrested, the UNHCR said.
The refugee agency said Goislard went to work in Ghazni, about 62 miles (100 km) south of Kabul, in 2002 after assignments in Rwanda and Guinea.
"We are deeply shocked and greatly angered by the senseless murder of Bettina, who was an exemplary young colleague always actively seeking ways to help people in need," said Filippo Grandi, UNHCR's Chief of Mission for Afghanistan.
"Her dedication to the Afghan people was truly extraordinary. Her death is a terrible loss to her family, to us and to Afghanistan."
