By
The Associated Press
GENEVA - A U.N. refugee agency employee was killed in a raid in the West African country of Guinea and a second was missing, the organization said yesterday.
The attack followed by nearly two weeks the slaying of three U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees staff members in West Timor.
The agency said the latest victim, whose identity was not released pending notification of relatives, was slain at his home by unknown gunmen in the southeastern town of Macenta, near the border with Liberia.
The staff member had contacted the UNHCR offices in the Guinean capital, Conakry, yesterday morning to report that armed attackers had burned Macenta's military garrison two hours earlier, the agency said in a statement released at its headquarters in Geneva.
Other UNHCR staff members in Macenta were sent to investigate after the staffer lost contact with Conakry, and they found his body at his house, the agency said.
"He had apparently been shot by the retreating gunmen," the UNHCR said. "His house had been burned, as well as a UNHCR vehicle parked outside."
Several bodies were seen in the streets of the town.
"Yet another humanitarian has been savagely killed trying to help refugees," said UNHCR Deputy High Commissioner Frederick Barton. "We haven't even buried our three other colleagues murdered in West Timor 10 days ago, and now we have lost another friend and co-worker."
It was unclear who carried out the raid.
Guinea hosts more than 460,000 refugees, one of the largest refugee populations in Africa. Some 330,000 are from Sierra Leone and 126,000 from Liberia. Most of the refugees in the Macenta area are Liberian, but some Sierra Leonean refugees have fled into the area recently following attacks by Sierra Leonean rebels.
UNHCR said it had heard that another staff member had been abducted in the southwestern part of the country. The agency said it had issued an urgent appeal to governments in the region to join in the effort to obtain the staff member's release.
