The aid workers caught up in a life or death struggle

HUMANITARIAN aid workers are special, big-hearted people who choose to take their skills to places on earth where there is desperate need. They help in the aftermath of sudden events like earthquakes or flood, and they spend long periods in areas of famine, pestilence, political instability, war and extreme poverty.

Traditionally aid workers have enjoyed both international legal protection and immunity from attack by belligerent parties inside the countries where they work. But attacks on aid workers occasionally happen, and this may in part be attributed to the increasing numbers of them now deployed around the globe, and partly also to the unstable environments in which they work.

Another factor may be perception: perhaps some anti-government factions in these countries question the independence of aid workers, seeing them as upholding the status quo; others may see them as importing values and beliefs that are at odds with the culture and beliefs those factions wish to uphold or impose on the local population. Yet others believe that foreign aid workers are actually spies.

To some dissident groups determined to wrest power from the ruling group in their country or those like al-Qaida who have a more global mission, aid workers from the West may simply be handy pawns in a power game. Second-guessing the reasoning and responses of such groups is the business of those from the aid agencies, western governments and their intermediaries who try to bring such situations to a successful conclusion. Sadly, in some cases, and despite the best efforts of everyone involved, a kidnapped aid worker is murdered.

Khalil Dale, a 60-year-old health programme manager with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) based in Quetta, a strategically important town in Balochistan, Pakistan, was kidnapped at the roadside on January 5, this year.

His body was found dumped in Quetta two days ago, with a note that said he had been killed because a ransom demanded in return for his release had not been paid.

ICRC spokesman Sean Maguire said the organisation had been in touch with Mr Dale’s captors “a number of times”. Mr Maguire added: “It is inappropriate to go into the details of any contact we had with the abductors... we did everything possible to try to get Khalil out and we’re very sad that our efforts failed.”

Foreign Secretary William Hague said he had learned of the death with great sadness and added that “tireless efforts” had been made over the past few months to secure Mr Dale’s release.

“This was a senseless and cruel act, targeting someone whose role was to help the people of Pakistan, and causing immeasurable pain to those who knew Mr Dale.”

Khalil Dale, who was born in York, had committed 30 years of his life to helping vulnerable people during postings to Kenya, Somalia, Afghanistan and Iraq before moving to his last posting in Pakistan.

Yesterday his heartbroken older brother Peter, who lives in Bramham, near Wetherby, said his brother would want aid workers to carry on doing the job he loved despite the dangers they face.

“He was a nurse to start with and I think he attended the School of Tropical Medicine at one point. He was very good at his job and if I ever needed advice on my health he was able to see me right.”

Peter, who was 21 when his half brother was born, saw Khalil (called Ken before he converted to Islam) as he was growing up when he visited their father in Manchester and has stayed in contact with him ever since.

“We spoke about once a month on the phone. I wish I had seen more of him and I want to get in touch with his fiancée now this has happened. I last saw him in September when he spent one night with us in Bramham – he was on in his way to see the Red Cross in Geneva. I told him he was mad to keep doing the job and that he should get out. But he just told me that he loved it.”

During the months of silence since Mr Dale’s kidnapping, the ICRC kept in regular touch with the family. “The Red Cross have been very good. They have been phoning me every fortnight to keep me informed – just to say that there was nothing to report.”

Behind the scenes, a secret “softly, softly” approach was apparently being used to persuade the captors to let Khalil go. Unlike some other countries that do pay ransoms when one of their nationals is kidnapped, the British government takes a more robust attitude in the belief that once a ransom is paid more British humanitarian workers or other UK nationals are bound to be targeted.

However, some other countries including France, Italy and Switzerland don’t hold the same line and have been known to accede to ransom demands by terrorist groups.

“The chances are that if a terrorist group is going to kidnap a foreign national they’ll capture someone from a country they know does tend to pay up,” says Professor Shaun Gregory, of Bradford University.

“But those doing the kidnapping don’t necessarily know which person is from which country, and of course some foreigners are simply kidnapped for political reasons, not for money. They are doing it to draw attention to their cause, and are not necessarily interested in actually murdering anyone.”

Prof Gregory, professor of international security and Director of the Pakistan Security Research Unit at Bradford, said a killing like Khalil Dale’s was “actually quite rare” in Pakistan, although Quetta (a town with a population of 900,000) is in a remote and volatile area along the important supply route into Afghanistan, with a large Pakistan military presence.

“So far it’s the Pakistan Taliban who have claimed responsibility, but that is only one of five main terrorist groups active in the area – including Balochi separatists, al-Qaida, the Punjabi Taliban and criminal gangs who have been known to kidnap and hold people to ransom. In recent months we’ve seen the kidnapping and release after eight months of Swiss couple Olivier Och and Daniela Widmer, after they were seized by the Pakistan Taliban.

“It’s not clear whether a ransom was paid or not by either the Swiss government, their families or a non-governmental organisation.

“They were kidnapped by the same group claiming responsibility for Khalil Dale’s death, but he was not held for long and generally you’d hope that his Muslim faith and his aid activities would protect him. I think we might in future find that the culprits are some particularly savage group within Pakistan Taliban that is involved in an internal leadership struggle. Generally studies show that these groups kidnap members of wealthy Pakistani families.”

Occasionally, a daring attempt to rescue a kidnap victim is mounted and succeeds, as in the case of American Jessica Buchanan and Poul Hagen Thisted from Denmark, employees of a Danish aid agency, who had been held for three months by armed men near the town of Adado in Somalia. The raid, carried out in January this year by members of the US Navy SEAL Team 6 unit that killed Osama bin Laden, was, in the words of President Obama, “yet another message to the world that the United States of America will stand strongly against any threats to our people”.

While a few such raids do succeed, a good few have been bungled, with the kidnap victim being killed in the process. And, in some cases, the hostage is simply released after many months of captivity.

So far the big aid agencies working in Pakistan have not allowed themselves to be drawn on whether they will change their operations in Balochistan in the light of the murder. Prof Gregory believes they will almost certainly reconsider their position.

“This event is bound to cause them to rethink where they locate their people. The killing may cause them to withdraw or change their way or working and change their relationship with the Pakistan military, too. The atrocity must be seen as a clear signal to the international community.

“This kind of killing is quite rare in Pakistan, but the message for the future coming from the Taliban is that they are serious about harming those they kidnap and demand a ransom for.”

Vital health mission to remote area

Khalil Dale was working as a health programme manager for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in the town of Quetta, in the province of Balochistan, Pakistan.

With the Pakistan Red Crescent, the Red Cross provides first aid training, clinics, healthcare and basic aid to people who are living in some of the most remote areas of Pakistan.

During 2011, the ICRC treated 12,000 patients from their weapons wounded clinic in Peshawar in the north, and across three clinics in Quetta. The Quetta health programme also covers a rehabilitation service, helping people who have received weapons injuries.