UN Agencies Mark World Humanitarian Day with Call for Protection of Aid Workers
On World Humanitarian Day, UN agencies and humanitarian organizations issued urgent appeals to protect aid workers, warning of a record number of attacks.
According to a report from Anadolu Agency, the UN humanitarian office (OCHA) reported a record 383 aid workers killed in 2024, while provisional data from the Aid Worker Security Database has already recorded 265 deaths as of mid-August this year.
Christian Lindmeier, a spokesperson for the World Health Organization (WHO), stated that violence against healthcare had reached alarming levels in 2025. The WHO has verified 821 attacks on health across the globe, with 1,121 deaths and 645 injuries among health workers and patients in 16 countries. The most affected countries include Ukraine (325 attacks), the occupied Palestinian territory (304 attacks), the Democratic Republic of the Congo (38 attacks), Sudan (38 attacks), and Myanmar (33 attacks).
Thameen Al-Kheetan, a spokesperson for the UN human rights office, quoted High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk in a tribute to those on the frontlines, stating, “We will never stop insisting that governments work together to ensure that they provide full humanitarian access to people in need, and that there is accountability for grave violations.”
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) also issued a joint statement, underscoring the deadly toll faced by aid workers. In 2025 alone, 18 staff and volunteers from the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement were killed. The statement also noted that deliberately targeting humanitarian organizations with false information adds to the threats faced by aid workers.
The day, marked each year on August 19, commemorates humanitarian staff who have been killed or injured in the line of duty. It was designated by the UN in 2008 in memory of the 2003 bombing of its headquarters in Baghdad, which killed 22 humanitarian workers.
