Gunmen Kill French Aid Worker in Chad -Aid Group

Pascal Marlinge, 49, was travelling in a three-car convoy near the Sudanese border, when the gunmen stopped the vehicles.

Gunmen shot dead a French humanitarian worker for Save The Children UK on Thursday in eastern Chad near the border with Sudan, the British aid group said.

Pascal Marlinge, 49, was travelling in a three-car convoy between the towns of Forchana and Hadjer Hadid, near the Sudanese border, when the gunmen stopped the vehicles, it said in a statement.

"Our information is that at about 10.15 am local time the convoy was stopped by a group of armed men. A shot, or shots, were fired and Mr Marlinge was killed. The four other humanitarian workers were unhurt," Save The Children UK said.

"All Save the Children UK work in Chad has been suspended until further notice."

Marlinge had a wife and teenage daughter living in France, it said.

Eastern Chad has been gripped in recent years by insecurity. This has included banditry, rebel activity and violence spilling over the border from Sudan's war-torn Darfur region.

U.N. agencies and non-governmental humanitarian organisations have extensive operations in the area helping several hundred thousand Sudanese and Chadian civilians displaced by violence.

France, which has troops stationed in Chad and has helped Chadian President Idriss Deby repel offensives by eastern-based rebels, denounced the killing as barbaric.

"I have been informed that Pascal Marlinge, a French citizen working for a humanitarian organisation, has been savagely killed while working for displaced people and refugees in the area of Forchana, in eastern Chad," French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said in a statement.

"This is an act of base barbarism," Kouchner said.