The UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) on Monday said 2023 was the deadliest year for humanitarian workers than ever recorded before.

In 2023, 280 aid workers were killed in 33 countries, a 137 per cent increase compared to 2022, when 118 were killed, the OCHA said.

“Worse still is that 2024 may be on track to be even deadlier,” it said.

“As of August 7, 172 aid workers had been killed,” the OCHA said, citing the provisional count from the Aid Worker Security Database.

More than half of the 2023 deaths were recorded in the first three months of the hostilities in Gaza, or from October to December, the OCHA said.

The “extreme levels of violence” in Sudan and South Sudan had also contributed to the death tolls in 2023 and 2024, the OCHA added.

The acting head of OCHA, Joyce Msuya, called for action.

“The normalisation of violence against aid workers and the lack of accountability are unacceptable, unconscionable and enormously harmful for aid operations everywhere,” she said.

Humanitarian organisations worldwide have written to UN member states calling for greater efforts to protect all aid workers, as the UN has marked World Humanitarian Day.

“We will continue to stay and deliver in humanitarian crises around the world, but the situation requires us to take a united stand to call for the protection of our staff, volunteers and the civilians we serve,” the letter said.

World Humanitarian Day is commemorated annually on August 19, the date in 2003 when a bomb attack at the UN’s headquarters in Baghdad killed 22 humanitarian workers.

(dpa/NAN)