The year 2023 records a record number of deaths of workers of humanitarian organizations

2024-08-19 22:49:00, Kosova & Bota CNA

The year 2023 records a record number of deaths of workers of humanitarian

The United Nations condemned on Monday the "unacceptable" level of violence that is becoming commonplace against aid workers. According to the UN, 280 such workers were killed in 2023, a record number.

The UN also warned that the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza is likely to increase this figure even more.

"The normalization of violence against humanitarian workers and the lack of accountability is unacceptable, unconscionable and extremely damaging to aid operations everywhere," said Joyce Msuya, acting director of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. (OCHA), in a statement on World Humanitarian Day.

"With 280 killings of humanitarian workers in 33 countries last year alone, 2023 is on record as the deadliest year for this community," an increase of 137% from 2022, when 118 such workers were killed, OCHA said via an announcement sent to the media.

Data are recorded since 1997 by the Humanitarian Organizations Employee Safety Database.

The UN says more than half of these killings took place in Gaza during the first three months of the Israel-Hamas war, mostly from airstrikes.

The civil wars in South Sudan and Sudan are two of the deadliest conflicts in the world, after that in the Middle East.

In the first 10 countries on this list are also Syria with seven deaths, Ethiopia and Ukraine with six each and then come Somalia, Myanmar and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

In all conflicts, the majority of deaths involve local staff of humanitarian organizations.

The year 2024 may surpass the record figure recorded the year before. As of August 9, OCHA reports that 176 deaths of humanitarian workers have been recorded.

Every year, the United Nations marks International Humanitarian Day on August 19, the anniversary of the attack on the UN offices in Baghdad in 2023.

During that attack, 22 people were killed, including Sergio Vieria de Mellon, the UN Special Representative in Iraq. During the attack, 150 local and international workers of humanitarian organizations were injured./ Voa