Reply #22: An American Aid Worker Is Killed in Her Line of Duty [View All]

[rodeodance]

The utter senselessness of it all!!



http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/18/international/middleeast/18american.html?

An American Aid Worker Is Killed in Her Line of Duty

By ROBERT F. WORTH

Published: April 18, 2005

BAGHDAD, Iraq, April 17 - For more than two years, Marla Ruzicka worked to get help for innocent civilians caught in cross-fires here. A 28-year-old Californian with blond hair and an electric smile, she ran a one-woman aid group.

On Saturday afternoon, Ms. Ruzicka became a casualty herself. A suicide bomber attacked a convoy of security contractors that was passing near her car on the airport road in Baghdad, killing her and her Iraqi driver, United States Embassy officials in Baghdad said.

Ms. Ruzicka had worked in Afghanistan as well as Iraq. She took great risks, often traveling to talk to Iraqis without the guards and armored cars that reporters here tend to rely on. She also had an extraordinary gift for promoting her cause, whether in Iraq or Washington.......


.....An American Army officer who arrived on the scene shortly after the bomber struck said that Ms. Ruzicka's car was engulfed in flames, and that she was still alive and conscious, with burns over 90 percent of her body.