Murdered UK aid worker ‘thrived on helping people’

LONDON — A day after video footage of the murder of British aid worker David Haines was released by Islamic State militants fighting in Iraq and Syria, his family has spoken to paint a picture of a man who thrived on adventure and the chance to help other people.

Mr Haines was born in East Yorkshire in Northern England but grew up in Perth, Scotland, before joining Britain’s Royal Air Force.

After 12 years of service, he became an aid worker, using his security expertise in some of the world’s worst trouble spots.

He worked in Libya during the Arab Spring of 2011 as head of mission for Handicap International, which helps prevent children from being killed or maimed by munitions.

After that, he headed to another of the world’s hot spots, South Sudan, which has been racked by civil war for decades.

He had been in Syria only a few days, working for the French aid organisation Agency for Technical Co-operation and Development (Acted) to help victims of the fighting there, when he was snatched in March last year. Mr Haines — the third Westerner beheaded in recent weeks by the Islamic State group — had entered humanitarian work with enthusiasm, his brother Mike Haines said in a statement yesterday.

“He helped whoever needed help, regardless of race, creed or religion,” he said of his brother.

Mr Mike Haines said his brother had joined the military as an aircraft engineer after attending school and working for the Royal Mail. He later got involved in humanitarian work and was most alive and enthusiastic when involved with such missions.

“His joy and anticipation for the work he went to do in Syria is for myself and family the most important element of this whole sad affair. He was and is loved by all his family and will be missed terribly.”

Mr Haines had a teenage daughter in Scotland from a previous marriage and a four-year-old daughter in Croatia with his current wife, Ms Dragana, who did not comment yesterday on the news of the killing.

British officials had kept the news of Mr Haines’ abduction out of the public eye for security reasons until he appeared in an Islamic State video nearly two weeks ago, which showed the beheading of American journalist Mr Steven Sotloff, threatening to kill him if the United States continued to launch air strikes against the group’s fighters in northern Iraq.

Mr Haines’ family had issued a plea to his captors the day before the beheading video was released. They urged the hostage-takers to contact them. The family said the militants had ignored earlier attempts to open communications. Agencies