The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said on Friday that this year witnessed the killing of more aid workers than in any year since the beginning of the census, most of them during the conflict in the Gaza Strip.
According to the Aid Worker Security Database, which includes statistics on events dating back to 1997, 281 aid workers have been killed since the beginning of this year, exceeding the previous record of 280 set in 2023.
The census showed that 178 aid workers were killed this year in the occupied Palestinian territories, including the Gaza Strip, where the most devastating conflict for the United Nations is taking place.
The census also showed that 25 aid workers were killed in Sudan.
Unacceptable violence
“These people are doing very important work, and in response they are being killed,” Jens Laerke, spokesman for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said at a press conference in Geneva. “What is happening?”
He added that most of the victims were local employees, while 13 of them were international relief workers.
Relief workers enjoy protection under international humanitarian law, but experts say that there are few precedents for referring violations of this protection to justice, pointing to obstacles such as concerns about the arrival of relief teams in the future and the difficulty of proving their intent.
“This violence is unacceptable and devastating to relief operations,” Tom Fletcher, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator at the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said in a statement.
He added, “States and parties to conflicts must protect humanitarian workers, respect international law, pursue those responsible, and put an end to this era of impunity.”
The United Nations believes that violence against humanitarian workers is part of “a broader trend of attacks on civilians in conflict areas,” as last year “more than 33,000 civilian deaths were recorded in 14 armed conflicts, an increase of 72% compared to 2022.”
