The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said on Saturday one of its staffers was killed as he delivered aid to the needy civilians in South Sudan.
The ICRC said in a statement that Lukudu Kennedy Laki Emmanuel was killed when a convoy of nine trucks and a four-wheel-drive vehicle was shot at by unidentified gunmen while returning from Western Equatoria on Friday.
“We are shaken and distraught by the killing of our colleague who was traveling in a convoy of vehicles which were clearly marked with the Red Cross emblem,” François Stamm, ICRC’s head of delegation in Juba, said in a statement.
The organization called on all those involved in the conflict to protect the civilian population and to ensure that humanitarian workers can perform their duties.
Kennedy joined the ICRC in 2014 as a truck driver in the Juba Delegation.
Since the outbreak of civil war 2013, at least 82 humanitarian workers have been killed, including 17 this year, most of them South Sudanese, according to the United Nations.