Brac official killed in South Sudan

Habibur Rahman

Unidentified assailants stabbed a Brac official to death in South Sudan on Wednesday.
Victim Mohammad Habibur Rahman, 45, regional manager of Brac Education Programme, was on his way to Yei from the capital Juba around 7:00pm on a pick-up van when he came under attack, said Jalaluddin Ahmed, associate director of Brac International.
The driver of the pick-up van informed the local Brac officials about the incident. Police found Habibur dead on the spot and the vehicle abandoned nearby. There were several stab marks on his body, added Jalal.
Law enforcers took the driver, his father and brother into custody on suspicion of their involvement in the murder.
Brac, a non-governmental development organisation, was working with its country office in South Sudan to provide full support for conducting a thorough investigation of the incident and bringing back Habibur's body home as soon as possible.
"We are hoping to bring the body back home by Tuesday," said Jalal.
This is the first incident in the African country where a Brac official has been killed since the NGO had started its operations there in 2007.
It now runs 200 primary schools in South Sudan and employs 237 staff. Of them, 37 are Bangladeshis.
Hailing from Jamalpur, Habibur is survived by his wife and a son. He was very popular among the students and teachers of the schools.
He had joined Brac in 1990 and worked in its education programme for 22 years in Bangladesh before being posted to South Sudan in 2009.
Meanwhile, Brac in a message yesterday said it was deeply saddened by the loss of Habibur and considered his untimely death as an irreparable loss to the organisation.
The NGO expressed its deepest condolence to the bereaved family members and pledged to provide full support to them to deal with this loss.