GENEVA: A staggering 281 support employees have been killed world wide thus far this yr, making 2024 the deadliest yr for humanitarians, the UN support chief mentioned on Friday (Nov 22).
“Humanitarian employees are being killed at an unprecedented charge, their braveness and humanity being met with bullets and bombs,” mentioned Tom Fletcher, the United Nations’ new under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency aid coordinator.
With greater than a month left to go of 2024, the “grim milestone was reached”, he mentioned, after 280 humanitarians have been killed throughout 33 international locations throughout all of 2023.
“This violence is unconscionable and devastating to assist operations,” Fletcher mentioned.
Israel’s devastating battle in Gaza was driving up the numbers, his workplace mentioned, with 333 support employees killed there – most from the UN company supporting Palestinian refugees, UNRWA – since Hamas’s Oct 7, 2023 attacks, which sparked the battle.
“States and events to battle should defend humanitarians, uphold worldwide legislation, prosecute these accountable, and name time on this period of impunity,” Fletcher mentioned.
Help employees have been topic to kidnappings, accidents, harassment and arbitrary detention in a spread of nations, his workplace mentioned, together with Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan, and Ukraine.
