Aid workers’ deaths: ACF refuses to take blame

Action Against Hunger (Action Contre la Faim (ACF) rejected the Government’s accusation that it had not attempted to withdraw its staff from Mutur in August last year, when 17 of them were killed.“The ACF was restricted from withdrawing the 17 humanitarian workers for security reasons,” an ACF spokeswoman Lucile Grosjean told The Sunday Times.

“We tried several times to remove our staff from Mutur due to the violence in the area, but we were stopped at a checkpoint by the security forces in Toppur and prevented from continuing any further,” she said. The ACF spokesperson was reacting to a letter sent by the Secretariat for Coordinating Peace Process (SCOPP) head Dr. Rajiv Wijesinha to Disaster Management and Human Rights Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe calling him to carry out an independent investigation as to why the ACF did not withdraw its workers from Mutur.

In his letter, Prof. Wijesinha condemned ACF for endangering the lives of its 17 workers by dispatching them to Mutur, where a fierce battle was taking place between Government forces and the LTTE.

He also questioned ACF’s failure to suitably compensate the victims, based on European norms, “given the danger to which ACF, by its irresponsibility, had exposed them, and from which it had failed to take appropriate action to rescue them.” Reacting to the letter Ms. Grosjean said “This letter carried grave accusations against ACF and we are prepared to offer full cooperation to an independent and national inquiry as long as its primary focus is to identify and prosecute the perpetrators.”