United Nations, 20 August 2024 (TDI): A record number of aid workers were killed in conflicts around the globe last year – more than half after the Israel-Hamas war erupted on October 7 — and this year may become even deadlier, the United Nations (UN) said Monday.
The 280 assistance workers from thirty three nations killed last year was more than double the previous year’s figure of 118, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs known as OCHA revealed in a report on World Humanitarian Day.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said that honoring the humanitarians killed in the deadliest year on record is not enough.
In Sudan and many other places, assistance workers are attacked, killed, wounded and abducted. We call for an end to impunity so that culprits face justice, the UN chief said.
OCHA said the ongoing year “may be on track for an even deadlier outcome,” with 172 aid workers killed as of August 7, according to a provisional account from the Aid Worker Security Database.
Over 280 aid workers have been killed in the war in Gaza, now in its eleventh month, mainly in airstrikes. The majority of them are Palestinians who worked for the United Nations agency helping Palestinian refugees known as UNRWA, according to OCHA. It said that “extreme levels of violence in South Sudan and Sudan” also have contributed to the death tally both this year and last.
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The UN’s caretaker humanitarian chief, Joyce Msuya, said in a statement that “the normalization of violence against assistance workers and the lack of accountability are unconscionable, unacceptable, and very harmful for aid activities everywhere.
In a letter to the 193 UN member countries, 413 humanitarian groups around the world said: The brutal hostilities we are witnessing in multiple conflicts around the globe have exposed a terrible truth.
