World Vision Staff Member Slain in Peru

The acting director of World Vision’s Peru office was killed and another official of the evangelical relief agency was seriously wounded in an attack by two unidentified gunmen in the Peruvian capital of Lima.

The shootings took place May 17 but were not announced until this week by the organization’s international headquarters in Monrovia.

Norman Tattersall, 46, who was based in Southern California but spent one week each month directing the Peru office, died at a hospital in Lima. Jose Chuquin, 45, director of the Colombia field office, underwent seven hours of surgery and was reported in critical but improving condition May 21.

Tattersall, Chuquin and World Vision Peruvian field office staffer Jose Zirena, who escaped injury, were attacked outside the agency’s Lima field office. Tattersall had been overseeing a program to fight the country’s cholera epidemic. The motive for the shooting was not immediately clear.

A native of Saskatchewan, Canada, Tattersall joined World Vision in 1980. He worked in Colombia and Honduras for two years before being promoted to field director in El Salvador. In 1986, he moved to California to work with the organization’s Latin America office.