The family of a British female aid worker in Iraq said on Tuesday that they believed 59-year-old Margaret Hassan was probably dead.  

"Our hearts are broken. We have kept hoping for as long as we could, but we now have to accept that Margaret has probably gone and at last her suffering has ended," the hostage's four brothers and sisters said in a statement released by the British Foreign Office.

"Margaret was a friend of the Arab world, to people of all religions. Her love of the Arab people started in the 1960s when she worked in Palestinian camps, living with the poorest of the poor and supporting the refugees. For the past thirty years, Margaret worked tirelessly for the Iraqi people," the family said.

"Those who are guilty of this atrocious act, and those who support them, have no excuses. Nobody can justify this. Margaret was against sanctions and the (Iraq) war," they said.

"To commit such a crime against anyone is unforgivable. But we cannot believe how anybody could do this to our kind, compassionate sister. The gap she leaves will never be filled," they added.

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw also said that the aid worker has "probably been murdered" in Iraq.

In an interview with the Sky News, Hassan's Iraqi husband Tahseen Hassan said he had been told "that there is a video of Margaret that appears to show her murder" and he believed his wife was dead.

Hassan, who held British, Irish and Iraqi nationality, was the director of the charity CARE International in Iraq. She was kidnapped by armed men on Oct. 19 in Baghdad when she was on her way to work.

(Xinhua News Agency November 17, 2004)