Spanish aid worker killed in Ukraine attack
A Spanish aid worker was killed in Ukraine when the vehicle she was travelling in was hit by a projectile, Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares said on Sunday.
"A shell hit a vehicle in which this Spanish citizen was travelling, who was working, who was deployed there by an NGO that was helping with the humanitarian situation in Ukraine, and we have a verbal confirmation of her death," the minister told reporters at the G20 summit in India.
Today, russian terrorists attacked a vehicle of the international humanitarian organisation Road2Relief in Chasiv Yar, killing two volunteers - the director of Road2Relief, Emma Igual, a Spanish citizen who studied at the University of California at Berkeley, and Anthony Ihnat, a… pic.twitter.com/zGj4mdV2VZ
— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) September 10, 2023
Albares gave no further details, but Spanish media identified the woman as Emma Igual, director of Road to Relief, an NGO dedicated to evacuating civilians from the front lines in Ukraine.
The organisation said in a post on Instagram that the vehicle in which Igual, 32, was travelling with three other aid workers "came under Russian attack" in Chasiv Yar in eastern Ukraine on Saturday morning.
"The vehicle overturned and caught fire when it received a direct hit," it said.
D.E.P. Emma Igual. Todo nuestro apoyo a sus allegados y a la familia de la cooperación española desde @MAECgob @CooperacionESP @AECID_es. https://t.co/38ketjb6QH
— José Manuel Albares (@jmalbares) September 10, 2023
A Canadian aid worker was killed and his body recovered, while a German and a Swedish aid worker "were seriously injured by shrapnel and burns, but are now in stable condition in different hospitals away from the scene," the charity added on Saturday.
At the time, Road to Relief said it was unaware of Igual's condition.
The aid workers had left Sloviansk and were on their way to Bakhmut to assess the needs of civilians "caught in the crossfire" in the village of Ivanivske.
