AGL 40.00 No Change ▼ 0.00 (0%)
AIRLINK 129.00 Decreased By ▼ -0.53 (-0.41%)
BOP 6.76 Increased By ▲ 0.08 (1.2%)
CNERGY 4.50 Decreased By ▼ -0.13 (-2.81%)
DCL 8.70 Decreased By ▼ -0.24 (-2.68%)
DFML 41.00 Decreased By ▼ -0.69 (-1.66%)
DGKC 81.30 Decreased By ▼ -2.47 (-2.95%)
FCCL 32.68 Decreased By ▼ -0.09 (-0.27%)
FFBL 74.25 Decreased By ▼ -1.22 (-1.62%)
FFL 11.75 Increased By ▲ 0.28 (2.44%)
HUBC 110.03 Decreased By ▼ -0.52 (-0.47%)
HUMNL 13.80 Decreased By ▼ -0.76 (-5.22%)
KEL 5.29 Decreased By ▼ -0.10 (-1.86%)
KOSM 7.63 Decreased By ▼ -0.77 (-9.17%)
MLCF 38.35 Decreased By ▼ -1.44 (-3.62%)
NBP 63.70 Increased By ▲ 3.41 (5.66%)
OGDC 194.88 Decreased By ▼ -4.78 (-2.39%)
PAEL 25.75 Decreased By ▼ -0.90 (-3.38%)
PIBTL 7.37 Decreased By ▼ -0.29 (-3.79%)
PPL 155.74 Decreased By ▼ -2.18 (-1.38%)
PRL 25.70 Decreased By ▼ -1.03 (-3.85%)
PTC 17.56 Decreased By ▼ -0.90 (-4.88%)
SEARL 78.71 Decreased By ▼ -3.73 (-4.52%)
TELE 7.88 Decreased By ▼ -0.43 (-5.17%)
TOMCL 33.61 Decreased By ▼ -0.90 (-2.61%)
TPLP 8.41 Decreased By ▼ -0.65 (-7.17%)
TREET 16.26 Decreased By ▼ -1.21 (-6.93%)
TRG 58.60 Decreased By ▼ -2.72 (-4.44%)
UNITY 27.51 Increased By ▲ 0.08 (0.29%)
WTL 1.41 Increased By ▲ 0.03 (2.17%)
BR100 10,450 Increased By 43.4 (0.42%)
BR30 31,209 Decreased By -504.2 (-1.59%)
KSE100 97,798 Increased By 469.8 (0.48%)
KSE30 30,481 Increased By 288.3 (0.95%)

A land mine explosion killed the driver of a Georgian medical aid vehicle that was accompanying European Union monitors patrolling a tense area Sunday near breakaway Abkhazia, police and EU officials said. A doctor from a Georgian medical aid group was injured in the roadside blast, Interior Ministry spokesman Zurab Gvenetadze said.
The EU monitors, who were dispatched to Georgia after its war last year with Russia, were in a separate armored vehicle that was slightly damaged but were unhurt, the EU mission said in a statement.
``We are still looking into the details of this incident, but I would like to make clear that any unprovoked attacks on our unarmed monitors and their patrols, going about their legitimate duties, are unacceptable,' mission head Hansjoerg Haber said.
Haber said the mission would contact authorities on both sides of the boundary separating Abkhazia from Georgian-controlled territory to investigate the incident ``and ensure nothing like this happens again,' according to the statement. He expressed condolences over the driver's death.
Georgian authorities said there were two land mine blasts. Nobody was hurt in the first explosion, but the occupants of the medical aid vehicle had gotten out of their car when the second blast hit, Gvenetadze said. He said the driver was hit by shrapnel and died in a hospital, while the doctor suffered non-life-threatening injuries. Authorities said they were investigating who may have been behind the explosions.
The blasts occurred in a district adjacent to Abkhazia, a separatist province where Russian forces have beefed up their forces following the five-day war last August. Russia has assumed control of the border with Georgian-controlled territory, and guards it jointly with Abkhazian forces. The EU sent monitors to patrol territory bordering breakaway Abkhazia and South Ossetia after Russia routed Georgian troops in the war and recognised both provinces as independent nations.
Areas near the separatist provinces are tense. Three bombs exploded near Abkhazia on June 11, injuring a railroad engineer, and a blast in the same area damaged a railroad track earlier this month.
Georgia has blamed Russian and separatist forces for shootings that have killed police posted near Abkhazia and South Ossetia since the war, but Georgian Interior Ministry spokesman Shota Utiashvili said it was too early to point fingers in Sunday's blasts. Shots were fired near the Polish and Georgian presidents outside South Ossetia in November, but a Polish security report concluded it was not an assassination attempt. Two unarmed military monitors from the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe were briefly detained in South Ossetia in April.

Copyright Associated Press, 2009

Comments

Comments are closed.