U.S. aid worker killed

last updated 8 January 2015

Baghdad

An American who ran a one-woman organization to help Iraqi civilians injured in the war was killed this week when a suicide bomber blew up a convoy passing near her car on a Baghdad road. Marla Ruzicka, 28, worked in Afghanistan and then Iraq, organizing aid for injured children, monitoring a count of civilian casualties, and lobbying Congress to allot more aid money. Several congressmen said she was largely responsible for their allocating $22.5 million for civilian victims of U.S. fire. “She was the one that persuaded us,” said Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT). “Here’s someone who, at 28 years old, did more than most people do in a lifetime.”