Red Cross temporarily stops operations in Afghanistan after 6 employees get killed; 2 missing

After six employees of the International Committee of the Red Cross were killed in Afghanistan on Wednesday, the aid organisation announced that it would temporarily suspend efforts in the country and called the offensive the "worst attack against us" in 20 years. 

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Two employees of the charity organisation have gone missing after they tried to deliver aid to a remote northern region hit by snow storms. 

"We will put our operations on hold for at least a week after our colleagues were killed in the attack last night," Thomas Glass, an aid worker and public relations officer with the ICRC, told Al Jazeera. They said they're haulting services "because we need to understand what exactly happened before we can hopefully resume our operations".

"We've been in Afghanistan for the past 30 years assisting people in need. We want to provide aid and help but not at the cost of our colleagues. So we need to know what happened before we restart our humanitarian efforts."

Taliban has denied responsibilty of the attack. The governor of the Jowzjan province suspects the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) hand.

"Daesh is very active in that area," he said. 

Jowzjan police chief said the bodies of the ICRC workers were taken to the provincial capital. 

"These staff members were simply doing their duty, selflessly trying to help and support the local community," ICRC President Peter Maurer said.

Higher altitude regions of Afghanistan have been hit by a massive snowstorm over the weekend with snowfall as high as two metres. It also led to the death of 100 people in an avalanche.  

In December 2016, gunmen in northern Afghanistan had abducted a Spanish ICRC employee, who was released a month later. He was with three Afghan colleagues between Mazar-i-Sharif and Kunduz. The locals had not been abducted.