U.N. Workers Murdered, Kidnapped

G E N E V A, Sept. 17 -- A U.N. refugee worker was killed and a second waskidnapped in a raid today in West Africa, officials said. Themotive for the attack was not immediately clear.

Mensah Kpognon, 50, of Togo, was slain at his home by unknowngunmen in the southeastern Guinea town of Macenta, near the borderwith Liberia, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees said.

UNHCR said it had heard that the attackers abducted another ofits staff members, Sapeu Laurence Djeya of the Ivory Coast.

The raid came nearly two weeks after the slaying of three U.N.staff members in Indonesian-controlled West Timor.

“Yet another humanitarian has been savagely killed trying tohelp refugees,” said Frederick Barton, deputy high commissioner,at the agency’s Geneva headquarters. “We haven’t even buried ourthree other colleagues murdered in West Timor 10 days ago, and nowwe have lost another friend and co-worker.”

Mystery Assailants

A statement by UNHCR headquarters said Kpognon had contacted theagency’s offices in the Guinean capital, Conakry, at 6:30 a.m.today to report unrest in the Macenta and to say that attackershad burned the town’s military garrison two hours earlier.

UNHCR officials in Macenta were sent to check on Kpognon afterhe lost contact with Conakry, and found his body at his house, theagency said.

“He had apparently been shot by the retreating gunmen,” thestatement said. “His house had been burned, as well as a UNHCRvehicle parked outside.” It said several bodies were seen in thestreets of the town.

The agency said it had issued an urgent appeal to governments inthe region to join in the effort to obtain the release of Djeya,the female staffer.

It was unclear what led the attack that killed Kpognon, whostudied at the University of Iowa in 1984-85.

Cross Border Raids

Guinea hosts more than 460,000 refugees, one of the largestrefugee populations in Africa. Some 330,000 are from Sierra Leoneand 126,000 from Liberia.