By R Anil Kumar
New York. A record 383 aid workers were killed in 2024, the United Nations said on August 19, calling the figures and lack of accountability a “shameful indictment” of international apathy. The organization warned that this year’s toll is proving equally alarming.
The UN said the 2024 figure marked a 31 percent rise from the year before, driven largely by the wars in Gaza, where 181 humanitarian workers were killed, and in Sudan, where 60 lost their lives. State actors were identified as the most common perpetrators of the attacks.
Most of those killed were local staff, targeted either on duty or in their homes. In addition, 308 aid workers were wounded, 125 kidnapped, and 45 detained last year.
“Even one attack against a humanitarian colleague is an attack on all of us and on the people we serve,” said UN aid chief Tom Fletcher. “Attacks on this scale, with zero accountability, are a shameful indictment of international inaction and apathy. As the humanitarian community, we demand—again—that those with power and influence act for humanity, protect civilians and aid workers, and hold perpetrators to account.”
Provisional data from the Aid Worker Security Database show that 265 aid workers have been killed so far this year, as of August 14. The UN stressed that attacks on aid workers violate international humanitarian law and undermine the lifelines sustaining millions in war and disaster zones.
“Violence against aid workers is not inevitable. It must end,” said Fletcher, the UN emergency relief coordinator and under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs.
Separately, the World Health Organization said it had verified more than 800 attacks on health care across 16 territories this year, leaving over 1,110 health workers and patients dead and hundreds more injured.
World Humanitarian Day, marked annually on August 19, commemorates the 2003 bombing of UN headquarters in Baghdad that killed UN rights chief Sergio Vieira de Mello and 21 colleagues.
