KABUL, Oct 26: A British-South African aid worker gunned down in Afghanistan last week was buried in a cemetery here in a heavily guarded funeral attended by about 50 friends, family and colleagues.

Gayle Williams, shot dead on Monday in a killing claimed by the Taliban, had asked to be buried in Afghanistan where she worked with disabled children, those close to her said.

Friends and family — including her mother Patricia and sister Karen, who arrived from Britain and South Africa, respectively — wept as her coffin was lowered into the grave.

The funeral, in the city’s historic British cemetery, was attended by British diplomats and watched over by police and guards.

Williams’ relatives were taken to meet President Hamid Karzai at his palace afterwards.The Taliban said the 34-year-old aid worker was targeted because SERVE Afghanistan, the organisation she worked for, was preaching Christianity. The charge has been rejected by the group.

HELMAND VIOLENCE: Meanwhile, an Afghan government official alleged on Sunday that eyes of an Afghan farmer were gouged out by the Taliban on the charge of working as a spy for foreign forces in Helmand province.

The group denied responsibility for the attack on the farmer and alleged the government was trying to defame them.

Sayed Ghulam, who belongs to Helmand, told AFP his eyes had been removed with a knife late on Thursday, as his family watched, although he would not say who was responsible.

Armed men knocked on the door of his home in Sangin district and when he opened, they dragged him outside, said the farmer from his hospital bed in Kandahar.

“About 20 metres away from my house, they held my hands and took out my eyes with a knife. It was very painful and the world turned black,” he said, a bandage across his eyes.—AFP