Two Red Cross employees were killed Wednesday in an attack on their vehicle in the Kayes region (Western Mali), the Malian Red Cross announced in a statement Thursday.
The driver of the vehicle and an expatriate delegate of the Dutch Red Cross were killed in this attack perpetrated, according to the first testimonies collected by the Red Cross, “by armed men who appeared on a motorcycle” and “opened fire without warning” on the team, the statement adds.
The driver was Malian and the expatriate delegate was Senegalese, said Nouhoum Maïga, secretary general of the Malian Red Cross.
The Red Cross said the team, which was “on a humanitarian mission in one of its vehicles bearing the Malian Red Cross emblem,” was attacked at around 6 p.m. local time (18:00 GMT) on the Koussané-Kayes road.
“The two other members of the team – the project coordinator and the accountant – were deeply affected by this tragedy,” the statement added.
“It was not the Red Cross as such that was targeted,” Maiga said, referring to a likely act of “brigandage” and not jihadism. “We have had robberies in the past, vehicle kidnappings, but no deaths of men” in recent years, he added.
The perpetrators of the attack left with the vehicle and equipment, he said. They later abandoned the vehicle, according to information he received.
The Malian Red Cross has condemned “in the strongest terms” this incident which “undermines the humanitarian mission towards vulnerable populations”.