The sister of a Khmer Rouge victim is to honour fallen aid workers at Westminster.
Pat Phillips, of Briestfield Road, Grange Moor, has been asked on behalf of global aid charities to speak at the poignant event outside Westminster Abbey on August 18 in memory of her brother Christopher Howes, who was brutally murdered while helping communities to clear land mines in Cambodia in 1996.
Pat, 62, will share her family’s struggle with his death and highlight the “selfless” actions of people prepared to die to help others in war torn countries by the Innocent Victims of Oppression memorial.
She will be one of the key speakers at the second ever event, which will be held on the eve of World Humanitarian Day and is being used to campaign for the creation of a permanent memorial to fallen humanitarian workers inside the abbey.
Pat, who was living in Grange Moor when she learnt of the devastating news, said: “I was asked to speak by one of the aid agencies, Mine Advisory Group (MAG), who my brother worked for.
“They want to use my family’s story to show how people have been killed overseas while doing good and to highlight that these killings are unfortunately increasing.
“I’ve never done anything like this before and what has been hardest is writing my speech down because it brought all the memories back.”
Pat and her family, from Nailsea in north Somerset, were left in turmoil for two years while trying to find out Chris’s fate.
He was murdered in the north western Cambodian forest by Khmer Rouge guerillas after being kidnapped a few miles north of Siem Reap in the village of Preah Ko and refused to leave the mine clearing group he was working with, who were eventually released.
Pat, a former Wakefield Council worker, said: “He had been working in Cambodia for around five months training communities when we were told he had disappeared and we had to campaign to find out what had happened to him with MAG and the Foreign Office.
“We were always worried that he would get blown up but never expected that he would be murdered.
“His killers were eventually sentenced to prison in 2008.
“The void and sadness left in our lives by my brother’s needless murder remains undiminished.
“He was a loyal, brave and exceptional man and had worked in the Royal Engineers seven years and for MAG for three.
“For his selfless bravery Christopher was posthumously awarded the Queen’s Gallantry medal in 2001.”
The event was started by MAG, Save the Children, Disaster Emergency Committee and four others and will also include an abbey evensong and wreath-laying.
She said: “It’s important that I honour his memory and that of selfless others who have given their lives to help war-torn countries”.
