Iraq charity worker believed killed

[Guest]

British official: Iraq charity worker believed killed

(CNN) -- The director of CARE in Iraq, who was kidnapped last month, may have been executed, a British official with knowledge of the abduction said Tuesday.

The Foreign Office official said: "There is a video. ... We believe it is probably genuine, but we cannot be certain at this time."

Officials are in close contact with the family of Margaret Hassan and will release a statement in a few hours when they know what has actually happened to her, the office said.

It was not confirming or denying her death at this point.

In a statement issued through the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Hassan's family said: "Our hearts are broken. We have kept hoping for as long as we could, but we now have to accept that Margaret has probably gone and at last her suffering has ended."

Hassan, who was born in Ireland and had lived in Iraq for 30 years, was kidnapped on October 19 by a group that did not identify itself.

The group said November 2 that it would turn Hassan over to an al Qaeda-affiliated group if the British government did not pull its troops out of Iraq within 48 hours, the Arab TV network Al-Jazeera said at the time.

CARE International suspended its operations in Iraq the day after Hassan was kidnapped in Baghdad.

Hours after the abduction, Al-Jazeera aired a video of Hassan sitting in a room, talking and appearing both tired and anxious. The Arabic-language TV network said the video was accompanied by a claim of responsibility from an unnamed, armed Iraqi group.

Hassan, who was born in Ireland, held duel British and Iraqi citizenships, and was a highly respected humanitarian official in the Middle East for 25 years.

Hassan was believed to be the eighth foreign woman to be abducted. All the others, including two Italian female aid workers, have been freed unharmed.

Source

[twpdyp]

Anyone who is of the mind to needs to pray for this womans soul and for her family and friends it sounds like the world lost a truly wonderful person.

Anyone who has read my posts on topics such as these knows how I feel and how I feel the retribution should go. Words from me are meaningless at this time.

[Vox]

Goes to show that kindness can be usually be thrown back in your face. This woman helped the Iraqi people for over thirty years and unfortuantely she came to her end. The real tragedy is how many people will remember Margaret Hassan's name 5 years down the line?

[Fluffybunny]

No good deed goes unpunished...

I am very sad for the womans family and friends, it must be horrible for them.

As I have already said a couple dozen times, I think that everyone that is not in the military should be pulled out of Iraq.

This is no time for aid workers, or civilian engineers. Maybe next year some time when things settle down, but not yet. All these people just end up being hostages and causing more problems than the help that they are attempting to offer. Get them out now.

[AztecInca]

@$@#%@#%#$@%$%%#$%$#%$%...............I cant believe this, such a brave caring woman like that who goes and helps the iraqi people for countless years is executed by scum of the earth terrorists because she isn`t an iraqi and because they believe she is helping the allies! This is trully sickening and now should be the time where all non military personnel are oulled out so that there are fewetr hostages being captures and executed, these terrorists need to be completly destroyed.

The world we live in is trully disgusting and sickening.......

[bathory]

oh but the insurgents are fighting against the foreign opressors!

Wheres vimjams when you need him.

[vimjams]

oh but the insurgents are fighting against the foreign opressors!

Wheres vimjams when you need him.

I am shocked and sickened by the murder of Margaret Hassan as any person would be. My thoughts are with her family and friends at this moment...And not with making nasty little jibes at somebody whose opinions about this war differs.

Bathory, it may surprise you (you've failed to understand this so far) but every time a soldier gets killed in Iraq I am saddened. I do not rejoice any aspect of this war and I have made it perfectly clear my primary concern has been and is for the killing, murder and destruction of civilians in Iraq.

You, and a number at UM do, will obviously use some excuse (collateral damage) to render 'acceptable' these thousands of innocent deaths of people that are never named...I do not.

Vimjams

Edited November 17, 2004 by vimjams