Ekstremistene i grenseområdene av Pakistan peiler seg inn på hjelpeorganisasjoner som driver program for kvinner. Terrorister stormet inn og drepte seks hjelparbeidere tilhørende World Vision onsdag. World Vision trekker seg nå ut av området.

There are concerns aid groups are becoming targets for militant groups in Pakistan, after six aid workers were killed when militants struck a World Vision office in the North-West Frontier Province.

It is not the first time an aid group has been targeted and World Vision has suspended its operations in Pakistan. It is likely other groups will soon follow.

World Vision said the office was targeted because it was running programs to help women.

A group of about 15 gunmen stormed into the offices in the Mansehra district on Wednesday.

Witnesses say they gathered the staff together and then dragged them off one by one to a separate room, where they were executed.

Six Pakistani aid workers, including two women, were killed, and about six others were badly injured.

World Vision Australia chief executive Reverend Tim Costello says the group has now suspended its operations in Pakistan indefinitely.

«In the past there have been threats and the community have said to us, ‘Let us deal with it, we want you here’,» he said.

«So it’s not as if there isn’t a very strong basis of support within the community to do what we’re doing.

«But in this instance no-one, it appears, could protect our staff and that’s why then you have to say, whatever assurances, whatever the urgency and the priority and the need, you have to guarantee [the safety of] those staff.»

It is not the first time an aid organisation has been targeted in the area. In February 2008, four local staff with the British-run aid group PLAN International were killed in a similar attack in the same area.

‘No safety guarantee’

World Vision has been operating in the region since a massive earthquake struck the area in October 2005.

Reverend Costello says it is clear that militants are targeting aid workers.

«Employing women is an important statement, giving them opportunities for businesses, for education … but it’s provocative,» he said.

«Most aid organisations have exactly the same philosophy and therefore are exposed to the same vulnerabilities.»