Mennonite Weekly Review

The eye care team killed in Afghanistan Aug. 5 — including Glen Lapp, a Mennonite Central Committee worker — may have been attacked by “non-local fighters,” according to International Assistance Mission.

Glen Lapp in Kabul, Afghanistan, in July. — Photo by Tom Wenger/MCC

IAM, a longtime MCC partner, investigated the circumstances around the deaths of 10 members of one of its eye care teams, from Afghanistan, the United Kingdom, Germany and the U.S.

“Our own research suggests that the murders were not a robbery as initially reported in the press,” said Dirk Frans, IAM executive director, in an Aug. 12 statement. “We are now working on the assumption that the attack was an opportunistic ambush by a group of non-local fighters.”

Yet IAM awaits the Afghan government’s findings as to who killed the team members, he said.

One Afghan member of the team survived the attack. He was held by the government for several days for questioning and then released.

IAM had been invited to treat eye conditions in a remote community in northeastern Afghanistan. As is local custom, guides from the community accompanied the team to the village and then back to the road where the team had left its vehicles, Frans said.

They were in their vehicles and had forded a river that had risen with heavy rains. They had exited their vehicles after the crossing when they were attacked by armed men, according to Frans.

IAM has no plans to leave Afghanistan, the only country where it works, though its eye care efforts have been diminished by the loss of veteran workers as well as younger workers in training, Frans said.

IAM estimates its eye care has helped 5 million Afghans.

“God-willing, we will continue to serve the Afghan people,” Frans said.

IAM has worked in Afghanistan since 1966, with about 500 Afghan colleagues and 50 internationals currently. In four decades previously, no Afghans had been killed while on duty, while four internationals had died, three in violence and one in a “strange car accident,” Frans said.