Physician, Nurse Relief Workers Killed in Rwanda

Abstract

A 3-MONTH project to shore up the beleaguered medical care system in Ruhengeri, Rwanda, has been suspended following the deaths of a Spanish physician and 2 other relief workers in an apparently deliberate attack on their compound in war-torn central Africa. The physician, Manuel Madrazo Osuna, 42, of Seville, Spain, was shot to death last month inside a house serving as the compound for Medicos del Mundo, the Spanish affiliate of the French medical relief group Médecins du Monde (MDM). "He came from a family of doctors and was committed to social causes since medical school," said Elizabeth Wagley, spokesperson for MDM's US affiliate, Doctors of the World (DOW). Also killed in the attack were nurse Maria Flors Sirera Fortuny, 35, of Lérida, Spain, and Luis Valtuena Gallego, 30, originally from Madrid, a photographer and logistician at the compound. Nitin Madhav, 28, of Pittsburgh, Pa, was wounded in the attack.