Slain aid worker awarded Burns humanitarian prize

Published on Saturday 22 January 2011 14:38

LINDA Norgrove, the Scottish aid worker who was killed by a US grenade after being taken hostage in Afghanistan last year has won the 2011 Robert Burns Humanitarian Award.

• Linda Norgrove was kidnapped in Afghanistan's Kunar province while working for an American charity, and killed by a US grenade as a special forces squad attempted to rescue her

The prize, presented annually to a group or individual who has saved, improved or enriched the lives of others or society as a whole, was awarded posthumously to Norgrove's parents John and Lorna at a ceremony at the new Robert Burns Birthplace Museum in Alloway, South Ayrshire.

John Norgrove said: "We are hugely honoured to accept this award on behalf of our daughter Linda. She was a modest person and incapable of boasting, so it's ironic that she is now receiving so much praise and attention. She would have found all this positively embarrassing."

Linda Norgrove, from the Isle of Lewis, spent four years working for the UN in Afghanistan on sustainable development projects, and after a brief spell in Laos returned to Afghanistan in February of last year as a regional director for US charity Development Alternatives Inc. She was kidnapped in September in the Kunar province of eastern Afghanistan, and was killed two weeks later by a grenade thrown by a US soldier as a special forces squad tried to free her.

Her parents have now set up a charity in her name. "As parents, we are immensely proud of her achievements and are determined that her name will live on in the work of the Linda Norgrove Foundation, which aims to help women and children in Afghanistan," her father said.

Last week, pictures and video emerged of Norgrove's captors that she had taken on her iPhone in the days before her death. They show the kidnappers, one with an AK-47, looking relaxed in her company and have raised questions as to whether her captors were religious fanatics or merely opportunists seeking ransom money.

Lorna Norgrove said last night: "Linda lived life to the full and worked hard to change things for the better, both for poor people and for the environment. We do hope that her energy, compassion and sense of adventure will be an inspiration for other young people to say 'yes' to life's opportunities and choose to live a life that matters."

Graham Peterkin, chairman of the Burns Humanitarian Award judging panel, said: "We can only hope she knew just how much she touched the lives of others and what she meant to them."

Magnus MacFarlane-Barrow, founder of the Scottish-based charity Mary's Meals, and Madhu Pandit Dasa, chairman of the Akshaya Patra Foundation, were also shortlisted for the award.