An aid worker for a Bradford-based relief agency has been ambushed and shot dead near his home.

Ra’aed Mohammed Saeed was shot several times in an attack close to Mosul, in Iraq, where he lived with his wife and six children.

The news has shocked his colleagues at the Human Relief Foundation (HRF) who have vowed, despite the tragedy, to keep up his good work.

Mr Saeed, who was 50, held regular conference calls with the charity’s Bradford head office as part of his job distributing the agency’s help to orphans and widows in northern Iraq.

Today Yousaf Razaq, the charity’s project co-ordinator in Bradford, paid tribute to Mr Saeed, who he described as a hardworking individual who was compassionate about others’ welfare.

Mr Saeed, who had studied for a diploma in engineering before joining the HRF eight years ago, is the second of the charity’s workers to die.

Mr Razaq said: “This tragedy highlights the extreme circumstances where we are having to work for the benefit of the people.

“It’s a hostile environment and our workers are risking life and limb.

“I knew Ra’aed personally, he was a committed and dedicated man.

“We used to speak regularly on conference calls.

“Our work in Iraq will continue, we will keep up his legacy.

“Our other workers out there have been affected by his death but they are determined to continue.”

Earlier this year the HRF sent senior health experts to help train medical staff working in Iraq.

The eight consultants and registrars trained 30 medics in Istanbul who then returned to Iraq where specialists are rare because of security risks.

The charity, which was set up in 1991 in response to the Gulf War and now works across 15 countries, wants to train more than 150 Iraqi doctors this year in a bid to make up for the 5,000 medical staff who have fled the country since 2003.

To find out more about the charity’s work, call (01274) 392727 or go to hrf.co.uk.