New York [US], August 19 : United Nations humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher has described the killings of aid workers worldwide as a "shameful indictment of international inaction and apathy," Al Jazeera reported.
Marking World Humanitarian Day on Tuesday, Fletcher said the number of humanitarian workers killed rose by 31 percent from the previous year, "driven by the relentless conflicts in Gaza, where 181 humanitarian workers were killed, and in Sudan, where 60 lost their lives." According to Al Jazeera, Fletcher noted that 383 aid workers were killed last year, nearly half of them in Gaza.
"Even one attack against a humanitarian colleague is an attack on all of us and on the people we serve," Fletcher said. "Attacks on this scale with zero accountability are a shameful indictment of international inaction and apathy."
Al Jazeera, citing the UN, reported that most of those killed were local staff who were either attacked in the line of duty or in their homes. "As the humanitarian community, we demand - again - that those with power and influence act for humanity, protect civilians and aid workers and hold perpetrators to account," Fletcher said.
The Aid Worker Security Database, which has compiled UN reports since 1997, recorded 293 killings in 2023. Provisional figures for this year show that 265 aid workers have been killed as of August 14, according to Al Jazeera.
One of the deadliest incidents this year occurred in the southern Gaza city of Rafah on March 23 when Israeli troops opened fire before dawn, killing 15 medics and emergency responders travelling in clearly marked vehicles. The Israeli army then drove bulldozers over the bodies and vehicles and buried them in a mass grave. UN and rescue workers reportedly reached the site only a week later, Al Jazeera reported.
The UN reiterated that such attacks violate international humanitarian law and undermine operations sustaining millions of people in war and disaster zones. "Violence against aid workers is not inevitable. It must end," Fletcher said.
Al Jazeera reported that Lebanon, which faced a war between Israel and Hezbollah last year, recorded 20 aid worker deaths compared to none in 2023. Ethiopia and Syria each saw 14 killings, about double their previous year's toll, while Ukraine reported 13 deaths in 2024, up from six in 2023.
Meanwhile, the World Health Organization (WHO) said it had verified more than 800 attacks on healthcare in 16 territories this year, resulting in over 1,110 health workers and patients killed and hundreds more injured. "Each attack inflicts lasting harm, deprives entire communities of lifesaving care when they need it the most, endangers healthcare providers and weakens already strained health systems," the WHO said.
World Humanitarian Day is observed every year to commemorate the 2003 bombing of UN headquarters in Baghdad, which killed UN rights chief Sergio Vieira de Mello and 21 other humanitarians.
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