Red Cross worker killed by shelling in Ukraine

As reported in 'The Japan News' : The Associated Press DONETSK, Ukraine (AP) — A Red Cross worker was killed by shelling in the rebel-held city of Donetsk, the aid group said Thursday. The International Committee of the Red Cross said Laurent DuPasquier, a 38-year-old Swiss national, died when a shell landed near the group’s office in the eastern Ukrainian city. “We are deeply shocked by this tragic loss,” Dominik Stillhart, the Geneva-based organization’s director of operations, said in a statement. DuPasquier had worked for the Red Cross for more than five years in Pakistan, Yemen, Haiti, Egypt and Papua New Guinea, before taking up his post in Ukraine six weeks ago. “We understand that there were other civilian casualties in Donetsk today,” Stillhart said. “Indiscriminate shelling of residential areas is unacceptable and violates international humanitarian law.” A spokesman for U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon issued a statement later on Thursday, saying the aid worker’s death, along with the shelling of a school that killed an unspecified number of civilians, “underscore the fragility of the current cease-fire and the importance of ensuring a secure environment in south-eastern Ukraine that will allow humanitarian actors to carry out their work and deliver critical assistance to those most in need.”