Japanese doctor who helped Afghans killed

A Japanese doctor whose long career was dedicated to helping some of Afghanistan’s poorest people was among six people killed on Wednesday in an attack in the east of the country, officials said.

The armed assault in Jalalabad city, capital of Nangarhar province, was the second deadly incident involving aid workers in recent days.

Tetsu Nakamura, 73, was head of Peace Japan Medical Services — known as Peshawar Kai in Japanese — and had been working in the region since the 1980s, when he began treating patients with leprosy in Peshawar in neighbouring Pakistan.

A spokesperson for Afghan President Ashraf Ghani called Nakamura “one of the closest friends of Afghanistan”.

Attaullah Khogyani, a spokesperson for Nangarhar’s governor, said Nakamura, who had been shot in the chest, was being transferred to a hospital near Kabul when he died.

Five Afghans were also killed — three of Nakamura’s security guards, a driver and another colleague.

The attack comes as humanitarian groups are on high alert just days after a UN aid worker was killed in a bombing in Kabul.

The UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan expressed “revulsion” at Nakamura’s killing.

It was “a senseless act of violence against a man who dedicated much of his life to helping” Afghanistan’s most vulnerable, the mission said.

Mitsuji Fukumoto, an official with Nakamura’s organisation, said the motive for the attack was unclear.

Nakamura was famous in Japan for his aid work.

Peshawar-kai was founded by associates of Nakamura, who had lived and worked in Afghanistan and Pakistan since 1984.

In 2003, Nakamura won the Philippines’ Ramon Magsaysay Award for peace and international understanding — often called Asia’s Nobel prize.

Jalalabad resident Auzubillah, who only uses one name, said he heard shooting at 8am.

“I saw there were gunmen attacking a Japanese and his security guards,” he said.

“Then the gunmen left the area through a small street.”

Photos from the scene showed a white pickup truck with a large cabin.

Nangarhar was once a hotbed of activity for the Islamic State group’s Afghanistan affiliate.

Authorities recently claimed the jihadists had been territorially defeated in the province, but small cells are thought to remain.