Red Cross workers killed in Congo ambush

Six International Red Cross workers, including two foreigners, have been killed in the Goma region of northeastern Congo in the worst single attack on the organisation in five years.

The team was attacked yesterday afternoon as it was driving in vehicles marked with the Red Cross on what was considered a safe road near the town of Bunia to assess the needs of the many displaced in the area, said spokeswoman Antonella Notari.

She said details were still sketchy and that the bodies were being taken to Goma for a post-mortem and it was too early to say whether the Red Cross would pull out of the region.

‘‘Right now the delegation in Goma is in mourning and is trying to cope with the situation,’’ Notari said.

‘‘We would need to know more about the circumstances and motives behind the killings before we can evaluate what to do.’’

It was the worst single attack against the Red Cross, a neutral Swiss-run humanitarian agency, since 1996 when six nurses were slaughtered in their sleep at a hospital in Chechnya. Three ICRC workers were killed in Burundi the same year.

Notari said the dead included a 36-year-old Swiss nurse, Rita Fox, and a 54-year-old Colombian relief worker, Julio Delgado.

Notari said the Red Cross base in Goma grew alarmed after losing radio contact with the two vehicles.

Local military authorities sent a search team and discovered the bodies by their vehicles.