Red Cross worker from China shot in Indonesia's Aceh
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-06-23 14:26

Shots were fired at a Red Cross vehicle in Indonesia's tsunami-ravaged Aceh province, wounding a female Chinese delegate in the neck, a spokesman for the federation said Thursday.

The circumstances of the shooting were not immediately clear, but the incident is the first time since the tsunami that a foreign aid worker has been the victim of serious violence in the province, which is home to a longrunning separatist war.

Two shots were fired at the vehicle close to the west coast town of Lamno on Wednesday evening, said Virgil Grandfield, a spokesman for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

Eva Yeung, a 28-year-old resident of Hong Kong, was shot in the neck and is in a stable condition. She was flown to the city of Medan by a U.N. helicopter on Thursday. Three other people in the car were unharmed, he said.

Aceh province is home to a longrunning separatist conflict that has killed some 12,000 people since 1976. Clashes between the rebels and government troops have continued since the Dec. 26 tsunami, but have been less frequent than before the disaster.

"We don't know if she was shot in a cross fire incident, or by the military, guerrillas or bandits," said Grandfield. "It is not clear."

A Red Cross security delegate was investigating the incident.

Rebel spokesman Sofyan Dawood said he had no reports of any clashes between insurgents and army troops in Lamno district on Wednesday night.

"We have heard of this shooting, but if anyone accuses GAM of carrying it out we deny it because GAM fighters only shoot in self-defense," he said by cell phone from an undisclosed location in the province. GAM is the Indonesian acronym of the Free Aceh Movement.

A military spokesman said he had yet to hear of the incident.

Both sides have pledged to avoid targeting the thousands of international aid workers that have flocked to the region since the tsunami, which killed more than 130,000 people in Aceh.

Relief agencies have said that the ongoing conflict has not affected their work there.

Since the tsunami, government and rebel negotiators have met three times in Finland to seek a peace deal in the province. The government has said it hopes to sign a deal by August.