Memorial fund for tragic Charlotte

Charlotte Wilson was ordered off a bus and shot dead

The family of a British woman murdered by rebels in Africa has set up a memorial fund to help children at the school where she taught.

Charlotte Wilson, 27, her Burundian fiancé and 20 fellow passengers in Burundi were shot last December when their bus was ambushed near Kilima, 18 miles north west of the capital.

Charlotte had been working with the Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO) as a science teacher at Shyogwe secondary school in neighbouring Rwanda since September 1999.

Her family have decided to set up a memorial fund to buy new equipment for the school and its pupils - a project Charlotte herself wanted to set up on her return to Britain.

Charlotte's idea

Charlotte's brother Richard, 25, from Enfield, north London, said his family was hoping to make something positive out of the tragedy.

"The idea was originally Charlotte's. She wanted to set up a fund to sponsor a pupil each year which would have cost around £50," he said.

"After she was killed we wanted to do something positive and we thought this was the best way of doing it."

The Wilson family, originally from Hoddesdon, east Hertfordshire, say more than £10,000 has been has already raised and they are in the process of deciding how to use all the money.

Return planned

Proposals include sponsoring pupils or buying text books and lab equipment.

A PhD graduate from Imperial College London, Charlotte was engaged to Burundi-born Richard Ndereyimana and was planning to return to Britain in July. She would have been 28 on Monday.

She was executed by Hutu rebels on 28 December last year when gunmen ambushed the bus on a routine cross-border journey and ordered the passengers off.

Details of the memorial fund and how to make donations to it are published on Charlotte's website.