Hibapress
Some 280 aid workers have been killed in conflict zones while providing assistance to affected populations in 2023, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said on Thursday. The “outrageously high” figure represents a 137 per cent increase from 2022, when 118 aid workers were killed, OCHA said in a statement marking International Humanitarian Day.
The normalization of violence against aid workers and the lack of accountability are “unconscionable,” said Joyce Msuya, Acting Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator.
The UN agency said 2024 could be even more deadly, with the number of aid workers killed as of August 7 standing at 172, according to a provisional count from the Aid Workers Security Database.
More than half of the deaths recorded in 2023 were recorded in the first three months of hostilities in Gaza, OCHA said, adding that since October, “more than 280 humanitarian workers, the majority of them staff of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA)” have been killed in Gaza alone.
“Extreme” levels of violence in Sudan and South Sudan also contributed to the tragic death toll in both 2023 and 2024, the UN agency concluded.
