MANILA, Philippines – A Filipina was among five United Nations personnel killed on Wednesday when Taliban gunmen stormed a guest house in Kabul, Afghanistan used by international workers in the war-torn country, the Philippine Mission to the UN said Thursday.

Philippine Permanent Representative to the UN Hilario Davide said Jossie G. Esto, 40, was the fourth Filipino UN worker to die in terrorist attacks against the world body.

Last year, Gene Luna, a staff member of the World Food Program, was among those killed in the bombing of UN offices in Algiers, Algeria, while Perseveranda So, of the United Nations Children’s Fund, died in the suicide bombing of a hotel housing international workers in Peshawar, Pakistan.

In 2003, Ranillo Buenaventura, of the UN Office of the Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq, died in the suicide car bombing of the world body’s Baghdad headquarters. 

Esto, a former schoolteacher, worked as an Electoral Outreach and Training Coordinator under the UN Volunteers (UNV) Program. 

Before this, she worked as an electoral officer and civic education officer in the Philippines before serving as a UN volunteer in Liberia, Timor-Leste and Nepal. 

She was married with two children aged 14 and 11. 

Her death came five years after Angelito Nayan, a Filipino UN volunteer assisting in the 2004 Afghan elections, was kidnapped in Kabul and held for three weeks by the Taliban before he was released, the Philippine Mission said. 

Ambassador Davide said Esto had been in Afghanistan for just over a year and was among several UN volunteers working with the United Nations Development Program/Enhancing Legal and Electoral Capacity for Tomorrow (UNDP/ELECT) Project. 

The Philippine Mission said UNV Executive Coordinator Flavia Pansieri expressed condolences on behalf of the organization’s 8,000 volunteers and staff to the families of Esto and Yah-Lydia Wonyene of Liberia, another UN Volunteer who was also killed in the attack on the Bekhtar Guest House in Kabul’s Shar-e-Now District.  

“Jossie and Lydia dedicated their knowledge and experience as volunteers to support the people of Afghanistan,” the statement quoted Pansieri as saying. “As volunteers, they demonstrated a true commitment to the cause of peace and development and their sacrifice will not be forgotten.”