GENEVA, Switzerland, March 12, 2014/African Press Organization (APO)/ — The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement condemns the killing of Patrick Matede, a 36-year-old volunteer with the Central African Red Cross Society who was gunned down in Bangui on Sunday 9 March.
A first aid worker for the past five years, Patrick was one of the first to start helping people when violence erupted in the capital in early December.
On 8 March, just one day earlier, an employee of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) was killed during an armed attack at a site where ICRC workers were staying in the northern town of Ndele.
The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, which in the Central African Republic comprises the Central African Red Cross Society, the French Red Cross Society, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and the International Committee of the Red Cross, is appalled by the killings and by the prevailing lack of respect for international humanitarian law.
We urgently call on those involved in the fighting to refrain from harming volunteers from the Central African Red Cross Society and other personnel affiliated with the Movement, and to allow them to carry out their life-saving work.
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