6 Red Cross volunteers killed in Central African Republic

Six Red Cross volunteers were killed in an attack on a health centre in southeast Central African Republic on Aug. 3, the aid organization said in a statement Wednesday. 

Civilians and medical staff may also have been killed in the attack, by unknown assailants, the Red Cross, but more details were not yet available.

"We are appalled by the news of the death of our fellow volunteers," Antoine Mbao-Bogo, president of the Central African Red Cross, said in a statement. "We call on all parties to take steps to spare the civilian population, and to respect all humanitarian workers."

Militia violence has intensified in southeast Central African Republic this year, including attacks on peacekeepers and aid workers, prompting fears of a possible return to large-scale chaos that gripped the country at the peak of a 2013 civil war.

The six volunteers killed were all from Central African Republic and were participating in a crisis meeting at a health centre in the town of Gambo, in the Mbomou prefecture, the Red Cross said.

It was the third attack this year on Red Cross workers in Central African Republic. One included the shooting in June of one worker in the diamond-mining town of Bangassou, about 100 kilometres away.