The family of the British doctor shot dead by gunmen in Afghanistan on Sunday rejected the Taliban's claims that she was preaching Christianity to Muslims, saying she was not religious at all.
Karen Woo, 36, a surgeon from London, was among 10 medical workers killed in a remote area of northern Afghanistan on Friday.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the killings, with a spokesman saying the group was shot because it was “spying for the Americans” and “preaching Christianity”. Woo's family rejected this, calling her a “true hero” who had no religious or political agenda. “Her motivation was purely humanitarian. She was a humanist and had no religious or political agenda,” said the family in a statement.
Woo had been due to fly back to the U.K. to marry a former soldier she had met in Kabul.
She was with a group of eight foreign nationals working with the Christian charity International Assistance Mission (IAM) when they were ambushed by men carrying assault rifles in a forested area of Badakhshan province.
“She wanted the world to know there was more than a war going on in Afghanistan, that people were not getting their basic needs met. She wanted the ordinary people of Afghanistan, especially the women and children, to be able to receive healthcare,” the family statement said.
“Her commitment was to make whatever difference she could. She was a true hero. Whilst scared, she never let that prevent her from doing things she had to do.” The statement came after Woo's fiance, British security worker Mark “Paddy” Smith, spoke of losing the woman he was due to marry in two weeks at Chelsea register office.
General Agha Noor Kemtuz, the local police chief, said that the group had stopped for lunch in a heavily forested area at around 2 p.m., when it was robbed.
The team, which included six Americans, one German and two Afghans, was returning to Kabul after a two-week mission to provide basic healthcare in remote mountain valleys in Nuristan. According to the sole survivor, an Afghan man called Safiullah, the attackers first took their money and then lined them up to be shot.
Kemtuz said Safiullah had been spared after he cried out passages from the Koran and pleaded: “I am a Muslim. Don't kill me.” IAM issued a brief statement condemning “this senseless killing of people who have done nothing but serve the poor.” Woo's friend, Firuz Rahimi, said she was “a brilliant person to work with”.
The pair co-founded another aid organisation, Bridge Afghanistan. He told the BBC last night they had spoken together on the phone the night before she left for the trip: “She was very into doing things she believed in. I will remember her for many things for the short period of time I knew her, not more than two years. She was full of dedication and a very calm person.”
A Taliban spokesman claimed the foreigners were killed for spying and attempting to convert Afghans to Christianity — an allegation IAM denies. A statement on the Taliban's website made no mention of alleged missionary activity. It said documents found on the foreigners “revealed the enemy was on a clandestine mission against mujahideen in the area.” — © Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2010
