A Spanish volunteer aid worker was killed in Ukraine after a missile hit the vehicle she was travelling in, Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares said on Sunday.
‘A projectile fell on a vehicle in which this Spanish citizen was travelling. She was working there at an NGO helping with the humanitarian situation in Ukraine and we have verbal confirmation of her death,’ he told reporters at the G20 summit in India.
Albares did not provide further information but Spanish media identified the woman as Emma Igual, the 32-year-old director of Road to Relief, a non-profit organisation dedicated to evacuating civilians from the front line in Ukraine.
Spanish media said the vehicle in which Igual was travelling was part of a 4-vehicle convoy.
The NGO said in a post on its Instagram account that a Canadian aid worker was also killed and two others wounded when their vehicle ‘came under Russian attack’ in Chasiv Yar in eastern Ukraine on Saturday morning.
In ‘a direct hit, the vehicle flipped over and lit on fire’, it said.
A German and a Swedish aid worker ‘were badly injured with shrapnel wounds and burns but are now stable in separate hospitals far from the scene’, it added in the post published on Saturday.
At the time, the NGO said the fate of Igual was not known.
The aid workers had left from Slovyansk and were heeded to Bakhmut to assess the needs of civilians ‘caught in crossfire’ in the town of Ivanivske.
Spain’s acting deputy primne minister, Yolanda Díaz, wrote on X (formerly Twitter): ‘A young woman committed to human rights, a woman who represents the best of our country. My condolences and my love to the loved ones of Emma Igual, victim of an unjust and criminal war.’
🔴ÚLTIMA HORA | Albares asegura tener una confirmación "verbal" del fallecimiento de Emma Igual, directora de la ONG Road to Relief, en Ucrania
— Radio 5 (@radio5_rne) September 10, 2023
🗣️"La confirmación verbal es que murió al caer ese proyectil sobre el vehículo en el que viajaba. Buscamos la confirmación certificada" https://t.co/Ikjha5ob46 pic.twitter.com/t3cltvVBJo
Una joven comprometida con los derechos humanos, una mujer que representa lo mejor de nuestro país.
— Yolanda Díaz (@Yolanda_Diaz_) September 10, 2023
Mis condolencias y mi cariño a los seres queridos de Emma Igual, víctima de una guerra injusta y criminal.
Qué tristeza. https://t.co/AMaftPON2r
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