The United Nations on Tuesday said that a record number of aid workers, 383, have been killed in 2024 while distributing aid and performing rescue and relief operations.
The international humanitarian organisation attributed the killing of those workers to a lack of accountability and 'shameful indictment' of international apathy. It said that in 2024, the figures of aid worker casualties rose by 31 per cent compared to the previous year.
The UN said on World Humanitarian Day, "driven by the relentless conflicts in Gaza, where 181 humanitarian workers were killed, and in Sudan, where 60 lost their lives". It also said the state actors, meaning the two countries or direct parties to the conflict, have killed the majority of the people in 2024.
The UN also said that its workers were either killed in the line of duty or targeted when they were with their families, indicating the majority of the aid workers were local. Besides those killed, 308 aid workers were wounded, 125 kidnapped, and 45 detained last year.
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UN chief’s aid Tom Fletcher said, "Even one attack against a humanitarian colleague is an attack on all of us and on the people we serve.” "Attacks on this scale, with zero accountability, are a shameful indictment of international inaction and apathy,” he said.
"Violence against aid workers is not inevitable. It must end," said Fletcher, the UN emergency relief coordinator and under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs.
Meanwhile, its main aid and health assistance-providing branch, the United Nations Health Organisation, said more than 800 attacks have been specifically aimed at UN officials in 16 territories this year. It said more than 1,110 health workers and patients were killed, and hundreds were injured.
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