A CHRISTIAN CRISIS relief worker and his translator were killed in a road accident after delivering supplies to refugees.

Tilman Roth, aged 33, from Germany and his Russian aide, Svetlana Duplina, died when their vehicle was crushed by an armored personnel carrier in a head-on collision at the border between the Ingush and North Ossetian republics, last month.

The accident happened as the pair passed a military convoy as they returned to Vladikavkaz from a camp for Chechnyan refugees in Sleptovskaja, where Tilman had been coordinating an aid shipment for the Christian crisis relief group MEDAIR.

The double tragedy was the latest in a string of setbacks for the international team, which has been working in the unsettled region for the past ten months.

Workers were pulled out of the neighboring republic of Chechnya late last year because of growing unrest, and after being the victims of an armed robbery and two "carjackings" within a few weeks. In one of them a car with four MEDAIR staff - including Tilman - was commandeered at gunpoint.

A building contractor, Tilman had been with the MEDAIR team since last October, and was coordinating the constructiion part of a relief program for refugees fleeing fighting in the region. His body was flown back to his home in Korntal, near Stuttgart where MEDAIR leaders joined a special memorial service.

Despite the tragedy British, Dutch and American team members will continue the project, said MEDAIR desk officer David Sauter, from the organization's Swiss headquarters in Lausanne.

"Even though we know that there are risks in every project we undertake, despite all the efforts we make to minimize the dangers, we have been devastated by this incident," he said. "Tilman made a great impact on many people's lives."

MEDAIR was founded in 1988 as a partnership between Youth With A Mission, Mission Aviation Fellowship and a French medical charity.

Last updated: 1996, May 31 /pf