On Monday, the United Nations condemned the “unacceptable” rise in violence against humanitarian workers, noting that a record 280 of them were killed globally in 2023.
It also cautioned that the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza could lead to an increase in such deaths this year.
Joyce Msuya, acting director of the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), stated on World Humanitarian Day, “The normalization of violence against aid workers and the lack of accountability are unacceptable, unconscionable, and extremely detrimental to aid operations worldwide.”
OCHA’s statement highlighted that “With 280 aid workers killed across 33 countries last year, 2023 became the deadliest year on record for the global humanitarian community,” reflecting a 137 percent increase from 2022, when 118 aid workers lost their lives.
The statement referenced the Aid Worker Security Database, which has been monitoring these figures since 1997.
The UN reported that more than half of the deaths in 2023, totaling 163 aid workers, occurred in Gaza during the initial three months of the Israel-Hamas conflict, primarily due to air strikes.
South Sudan, plagued by civil unrest, and Sudan, where a conflict between two rival generals has been ongoing since April 2023, are the next deadliest regions for humanitarians, with 34 and 25 deaths respectively.
The top 10 also includes Israel and Syria, each with seven deaths; Ethiopia and Ukraine, each with six deaths; Somalia with five fatalities; and Myanmar and the Democratic Republic of Congo, each with four deaths.
In all these conflicts, the majority of deaths involve local staff.
Despite the “outrageously high number” of aid worker fatalities in 2023, OCHA warned that 2024 “could be on course for an even more deadly outcome.”
As of August 9, the Aid Worker Security Database reports that 176 aid workers have been killed globally.
Since October, when militants from Hamas launched a deadly raid into Israel that sparked the ongoing war, over 280 aid workers have been killed in Gaza, with most of them being employees of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, according to OCHA.
In response to this situation, leaders from several humanitarian organizations were set to send a letter to UN member states on Monday, urging the international community to “end attacks on civilians, protect all aid workers, and hold perpetrators accountable.”
Every year on August 19, the United Nations observes World Humanitarian Day to commemorate the anniversary of the 2003 attack on its Baghdad headquarters.
The bombing resulted in the deaths of 22 people, including Sergio Vieira de Mello, the UN special representative to Iraq, and injured approximately 150 local and international aid workers.
