The chief executive of Cornish charity ShelterBox, Alison Wallace, has paid tribute to aid worker David Haines who has been beheaded by Islamic State militants.
Ms Wallace extended her thoughts to Mr Haines' family and reassured aid workers that the Helston based charity would do its utmost to protect them.
ShelterBox is partners with the Agency for Technical Co-operation and Development (ACTED) the charity which Mr Haines was working for when he was seized in Syria in 2013.
The news of his death broke this morning after a video showing his beheading was confirmed as genuine by the government.
Ms Wallace said: "Like everyone across the country I awoke today to the chilling news that British aid worker David Haines appears to be the latest victim of brutality by Islamic State militants, having been kidnapped in Syria in 2013.
"My first thought was for his family and friends, who will have endured month after month of despair and hope, now so cruelly dashed. Our hearts go out to them.
"My second thought was that David Haines was an aid worker, whose only motivation was to ease the suffering of people caught up in conflict.
"It defies any rational explanation to seize, and then murder, a person who had no political or military agenda, only the humanitarian imperative to help innocent victims of war."
ShelterBox does not currently have any response team members in either Iraq or Syria.
"I want to reassure everyone that the security of our aid workers is our primary concern, and that all foreseeable dangers are considered before we deploy response teams to help families in need," Ms Wallace continued.
"Every SRT (ShelterBox Response Team member) has been rigorously trained in personal safety by security industry and military professionals. No-one who wears the ShelterBox badge is ever knowingly put in harm's way, and there is a great reliance on teamwork and communications to maximise individual safety."
She added that the charity would "redouble" its efforts to keep its employees safe if hostage takers continue to target aid workers.
Mr Haines' death follows the beheading of two US captives, and came shortly after his family appealed to his captors to make contact with them.
The aid worker went to school in Perth and had been living in Croatia with his second wife, who is Croatian, and their four-year-old daughter. His parents live in Ayr.
