Gayle Williams (18 December 1973 – 20 October 2008)

Gayle Williams was an aid worker for SERVE Afghanistan of joint British and South African nationality. She was shot on her way to work in Kabul, Afghanistan by two men on a motorbike. A spokesman for the Taliban, claimed responsibility for her death and said she had been killed "because she was working for an organization which was preaching Christianity in Afghanistan".

Williams was born in Zimbabwe and raised in Empangeni, KwaZulu Natal. Her mother took her to live in Middlesbrough, England during her secondary school years, after which she went back to South Africa to study biokinetics and occupational therapy at the University of Zululand. Afterward, she returned to London to work with disabled and deprived children.

Gayle had been fascinated with Afghanistan and worked with Afghan refugees in camps in Pakistan. She was determined to work in-country and was stationed in the Taliban heartland of Kandahar in 2006, working with disabled, blind, deaf, and children hurt and maimed by landmines. The charity SERVE Afghanistan is Christian in its beliefs but denied that it tried to spread Christianity. Colleagues stressed that Williams was extremely careful not to try to convert Afghans.

She was aware of the risks of working in Afghanistan. Some 4,000 people had been killed there in 2008, of whom one third were civilians. Taliban violence had been targeted against aid workers to spread fear and undermine the Government's claims to be bringing security. Gayle had attended the funeral of a colleague a few weeks before her own death and expressed a wish to be buried in the same Christian cemetery in Kabul if she were to die in Afghanistan. A friend recounted at her funeral that she said, "These bodies are only temporary. When I get to heaven I will have a new body."

On 20 October 2008, Gayle Williams was shot at close range, while walking on a quiet street in Kabul. UK Secretary of State for International Development, condemned the murder: "Her killing was a callous and cowardly act by people who would take Afghanistan back to the dark days of the Taliban tyranny which scarred the country for so long." The London-based scholar Ziauddin Sardar described the killing as "another barbaric act in the name of Islam" and called on all Muslims to condemn the Taliban. Following Williams' funeral, her mother and sister met President Hamid Karzai who wished to express his condolences. Her sister Karen Williams stated that they had forgiven the killers as Gayle would have done. The family arranged a memorial service in London the week after. They asked for no flowers but for donations to be sent for the welfare of deprived Afghan children. There were calls for Christians to end evangelism, however, a worldwide commission of evangelical Christian theologians, meeting in Bangkok reaffirmed the importance of holistic mission. A "prayer walk" for Williams' family and colleagues was arranged in London, stopping to pray outside the embassies of countries persecuting Christian believers.