Gunmen in eastern Chad killed a French aid worker with Save The Children UK today after halting the convoy of vehicles in which he was travelling near the Sudan border, the British charity said.
Pascal Marlinge (49) was one of a group of aid workers moving in a three-car convoy between the villages of Forchana and Hadjer Hadid in Chad's eastern borderlands, where several hundred thousand refugees are sheltering in UN-run camps.
Hijacking of aid vehicles is common in east Chad, which has been racked by violence in recent years that has included rebel offensives, inter-ethnic clashes and attacks by raiders coming over the border from Sudan's war-torn Darfur region.
There are over 350 Irish Army personnel currently stationed in Chad as of the Eufor peacekeeping operation.
Killings of foreign humanitarian workers, several hundred of whom work in Chad, are rare.
"Our information is that at about 10.15am 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," it added in a statement. Marlinge had a wife and teenage daughter living in France, it said.
France, which has troops stationed in Chad and has helped Chadian President Idriss Deby beat back offensives from the east by anti-government 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," Mr Kouchner said.
The identity of Mr Marlinge's killers was not immediately known, nor why he was shot.