The Diplomat
Spanish aid worker Emma Igual, director of the NGO Road to Relief, was killed on Saturday in a Russian attack on her convoy in Ukraine, which also killed a Canadian volunteer and injured a Swede and a German.
The death was confirmed yesterday by the acting foreign ministry, José Manuel Albares, and by the NGO itself, which has been working in Ukraine since the beginning of the Russian invasion.
The vehicle in which the aid workers were travelling came under artillery fire as it was travelling along a road near the town of Chasiv Yar in Donetsk province, on its way from Sloviansk to Bakhmut to assess the needs of civilians caught in the crossfire in the town of Ivanivske.
As a result of the attack, the vehicle overturned and caught fire, killing Emma Igual and Canadian Anthony ‘Tonko’ Ihnat, and seriously injuring German medical volunteer Ruben Mawick, and Swedish aid worker Johan Mathias Thyr.
Emma Igual, 32, was the director and co-founder of the NGO Road to Relief, which since 2002 has been carrying out civilian evacuations and providing humanitarian and medical aid to the civilian population living in the localities most affected by the war in Ukraine. The NGO works in the Ukrainian provinces of Kherson and Donetsk “serving a total of 112 villages with a combined population of more than 30,000 people”, according to its website.
The Minister of Defence, Margarita Robles, lamented the death of the aid worker during a visit to the area devastated by the Dana in Aldea del Fresno. “All my solidarity with the family of the Spanish aid worker and with all Ukrainian citizens who are victims of these massacres. The only person responsible here is Putin, that is why we cannot be equidistant”.
Similarly, the president of the government, Pedro Sánchez, and the minister of foreign affairs, José Manuel Albares, conveyed their condolences to Emma Igual’s family. Sánchez wrote on his “X” account: “Humanitarian workers and civilians can never be a target of war”.
The leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, also expressed on his “X” account his affection “for the family, friends and colleagues of Emma Igual, pointing out that she defended in Ukraine “the best of our society: commitment, courage and altruism”.
