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Press Release

UNICEF condemns nurse's murder during Angola polio campaign

Friday 16 June 2000: UNICEF laments the tragic and violent death of Luis Felipe Gomes, Chief Nurse of Belize Municipal Hospital in Angola, on Saturday, 10 June. The 30-year-old medical worker was serving on the front line of the intense global campaign to eradicate polio for all time by reaching children in still-endemic areas wracked by conflict.

UNICEF, WHO, Rotary International, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and partners, with the support of the UN Secretary General, have worked hard to secure days of peace in such areas, enabling vital immunization activities, critical to eradicating polio. Peace should have prevailed last Saturday. But while driving with companion health workers, Mr. Gomes was ambushed and killed, in an unprovoked, armed attack.

Investigations are ongoing to determine who was responsible for the killing.

The death of Mr. Gomes adds one more name to a tragic toll of humanitarian workers wantonly struck down as they went about the work of seeing that the rights of all the world's children are honoured. This vicious murder and others like it confer a badge of shame on those who will not lay aside arms even for a single day to allow the work of saving children's lives to proceed.

This murder took place during the first of three scheduled rounds of National Immunization Days (NIDs) in Angola. Another war-torn country, the Democratic Republic of Congo, is scheduled to have NIDs in the near future. In the face of this intolerable crime, we must redouble efforts to ensure the safety of all front-line workers in this vital campaign to rid the world of polio.

Please email media@unicef.org with comments or requests for more information, quoting CF/DOC/PR/2000/51