ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - — ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - -A U.N. official and a guard were shot and killed Thursday during a botched kidnapping attempt at a displacement camp in northwest Pakistan, underscoring the level of violence plaguing the country even as government leaders assert it's safe for camp dwellers to return home to the volatile Swat Valley.
The slayings occurred at the Kacha Garhi camp outside Peshawar, northwest Pakistan's largest city. Zelle Usman, a Pakistani citizen and a U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees field officer assigned to the camp, was in his car getting ready to leave late Thursday morning when four gunmen approached and tried to kidnap him, said Abdul Ghafoor Afridi, a senior Peshawar police official.
When Usman and a guard resisted, an exchange of gunfire broke out. Usman, 59, was fatally shot in the chest. The guard was also killed in the crossfire, Afridi said. One of the gunmen was shot but was able to escape with the other three assailants.
A U.N. spokeswoman in Islamabad said Usman was assigned to help manage humanitarian aid at Kacha Garhi, one of many camps established to shelter Swat Valley residents forced to flee when Pakistan troops launched an all-out offensive to flush out Taliban militants from the region. Usman had worked for the U.N. for 30 years. The spokeswoman, who declined to give her name, said the U.N. heightened security for its staff in Pakistan as a result of the shooting, but she did not elaborate.
Security is lax at many Pakistani displacement camps, where visitors are rarely scrutinized and guards at the main gate are often unarmed. Afridi described the level of security at the Kacha Garhi camp as weak.
U.N. officials have had to strike a balance between helping Pakistan deal with one of its worst humanitarian crises in years and the need to ensure security for its workers in one of the world's most hostile environments. The U.N.'s contingent in Pakistan suffered a severe blow in June when a commando-style suicide bombing at a luxury hotel in Peshawar killed several of its workers.
In April, UNHCR official John Solecki, an American, was released after being held for two months by kidnappers belonging to a nationalist militant group from Pakistan's Balochistan province.
