‘Shameful’: UN says 383 aid workers killed last year, nearly half in Gaza

United Nations humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher has issued a “shameful indictment of international inaction and apathy” as he has shared statistics on the killing of 383 aid workers last year worldwide, nearly half in Gaza.

Marking World Humanitarian Day on Tuesday, Fletcher said the killings rose by 31 percent from the year before, “driven by the relentless conflicts in Gaza, where 181 humanitarian workers were killed, and in Sudan, where 60 lost their lives”.

“Even one attack against a humanitarian colleague is an attack on all of us and on the people we serve,” Fletcher said. “Attacks on this scale with zero accountability are a shameful indictment of international inaction and apathy.”

The UN said most of those killed were local staff and were either attacked in the line of duty or in their homes.

“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,” said Fletcher, who is the UN’s undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator.

This year’s toll

The Aid Worker Security Database, which has compiled UN reports since 1997, said the number of killings rose from 293 in 2023.

Provisional figures from the database for this year show 265 aid workers have been killed as of August 14.

One of the deadliest attacks this year took place in the southern Gaza city of Rafah when Israeli troops opened fire before dawn on March 23, killing 15 medics and emergency responders travelling in clearly marked vehicles.

The Israeli army drove bulldozers over the bodies and the emergency vehicles and buried them in a mass grave. UN and rescue workers were able to reach the site only a week later.

The UN reiterated that attacks on aid workers and their operations violate international humanitarian law and damage the lifelines sustaining millions of people trapped in war and disaster zones.

“Violence against aid workers is not inevitable. It must end,” Fletcher said.

Elsewhere

Lebanon, which Israel battered in a war with Hezbollah last year, saw 20 aid workers killed, compared with none in 2023.

Ethiopia and Syria each had 14 killings, about double their numbers in 2023, and Ukraine had 13 aid workers killed in 2024, up from six in 2023, according to the database.

Meanwhile, the UN’s World Health Organization (WHO) said it verified more than 800 attacks on healthcare in 16 territories so far this year with more than 1,110 health workers and patients killed and hundreds injured.

“Each attack inflicts lasting harm, deprives entire communities of lifesaving care when they need it the most, endangers healthcare providers and weakens already strained health systems,” the WHO said.