Red Cross pilot killed in attack on aircraft

The Danish co-pilot of an International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) aircraft was killed when it came under attack between Lokichoggio, northwestern Kenya, and Juba in Western Equatoria, southern Sudan, early on Wednesday morning. The staff transport shuttle flight between Lokichoggio and the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, was halfway between Lokichoggio (the Kenyan base for most relief operations in southern Sudan) and a stage stop at Juba when the attack occurred, ICRC spokesman Michael Kleiner told IRIN on Wednesday. The aircraft had just climbed back to its assigned altitude after a technical problem forced it to descend briefly to 6,500 feet (2,000 metres) when it came under attack, the ICRC stated in a press release. The pilot heard what sounded like “explosions”, after which the co-pilot, Ole-Friis Eriksen (26), died instantly. The pilot, who was not injured, turned back to Lokichoggio and landed safely at 0850 local time, some 50 minutes after takeoff, according to Kleiner. There were no passengers on the flight, for which prior notice had been given and authorisation had been received from all the parties on the ground, Kleiner said. There were two “impact marks” near the co-pilot’s seat and another on the right wing, but it was “much too early” to comment on what exactly had hit the plane and how the incident had come about, he added. The ICRC had decided to suspend all its flights to southern Sudan, the agency stated on Wednesday afternoon. Though this attack occurred less than two weeks after the murder of six ICRC staff in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and was “another blow to the ICRC and to humanitarian action, it was also “profoundly different from what occurred in the Congo - when the staff members were taken from a Red Cross vehicle and murdered. After that act, the ICRC vowed to continue to fulfil its humanitarian mandate in dangerous and difficult places