The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), has officially
announced that its aid worker, a 24-year-old Nigerian midwife Hauwa
Mohammed Liman who was captured by Boko Haram in May has been killed by
her abductors.
Reuters, in an updated report, revealed that
Red Cross said this on Tuesday, October 16, during an interview session
with Patricia Danzi, its regional director for Africa saying the death
of Hauwa was because it failed to pay her ransom, adding that paying
such a ransom would set a regrettable precedent for other 16,000 of its
aid workers across 80 countries in the the world.
However,
the Geneva-based aid agency said that though it was reluctant on paying
Hauwa’s ransom, it appealed to the the Islamic State in West Africa
(ISWA), a faction of Boko Haram, to spare the life of the valiant aid
worker.
“When health care workers are captured or abducted there is
always a demand. We are a humanitarian organisation so we cannot enter
into such kind of negotiations. So we always ask for unconditional
release. And that’s what we did. That was the plea.
We
believe that there is no cause that can justify an execution of a young
healthcare staff (worker). We are now in a period of mourning…Then we
will have to rethink what we can do. And the (security) guarantees we
can get. Because we want to give humanity a chance, we want to be there
for the people that still need our help.”
Nigeria is the
ICRC’s second largest operation in Africa and its aid workers help
80,000 mainly displaced people in the northeastern town of Rann. Liman
and two other Nigerian aid workers, Alice Loksha and Saifura Hussaini
Ahmed Khorsa, were working in Rann when they were kidnapped by ISWA in
March. Saifura was killed in September.
