Six aid workers were killed in an attack on a World Vision office in the village of Oghi, in Pakistan’s Mansehra district. Seven aid workers were wounded and one is still missing.
At around 9 a.m. local time, ten suspected Islamist militants armed with guns and grenades stormed the office and ordered all occupants out of the building before starting to shoot, policemen and witnesses were quoted by news media. The gunmen also reportedly set off bombs and grenades within the office.
Survivors of the attack told Reuters that the attackers singled out aid workers, separating them from other employees of the office. Munir Ahmed, a project officer of the U.S.-based Christian nonprofit, recalled hearing the gunmen ask, “Why are you doing this job?”
World Vision has indefinitely suspended all of its operations in Pakistan following what it called an unprovoked attack on the agency.
“It was a brutal and senseless attack,” said Dean Owen, a World Vision spokesman in Seattle, as quoted by the Associated Press. “It was completely unexpected, unannounced and unprovoked.”
