Two Road to Relief volunteers killed in Russian strike on Ukraine

Two foreign volunteers for Road to Relief, a non-governmental organisation that helps evacuate civilians from frontline areas in Ukraine, have been killed in a Russian missile attack, the charity announced in a statement on Sunday.

“Unfortunately, I can confirm a missile hit a vehicle in which a Spanish worker was travelling who was working for a humanitarian NGO in Ukraine. We have verbal confirmation of her death,” Spain’s Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares said earlier in the day.

Road to Relief’s Director Emma Igual, a Spanish citizen, and Anthony “Tonko” Ihnat, a Canadian, were both killed in the strike, the NGO confirmed, adding that two other volunteers in the car had been “badly injured with shrapnel wounds and burns”. The pair, a German citizen and a Swedish citizen, were both hospitalised and are both now in a stable condition.

When the missile strike occurred, the four volunteers had been travelling to the Ukrainian city Bakhmut from nearby Sloviansk “to assess the needs of civilians”, Road to Relief said.