UN chief salutes aid workers, calls for protecting their safety on World Humanitarian Day

UNITED NATIONS, Aug. 19 (Xinhua) -- UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Tuesday that relief workers, themselves increasingly suffering attacks, are the last lifeline for more than 300 million people caught in conflict or disaster worldwide.

"Last year, at least 390 aid workers - a record high - were killed across the world. From Gaza to Sudan to Myanmar and beyond," he said. "International law is clear: humanitarians must be respected and protected. They can never be targeted."

In a video message marking World Humanitarian Day, Guterres said that while the rule is non-negotiable and is binding on all parties to conflict, always and everywhere, red lines are crossed with impunity.

"The rules and tools exist," the UN chief said. "What is missing is political will and moral courage."

"An attack on humanitarians is an attack on humanity," he said.

Guterres' spokesman Stephane Dujarric said that Aug. 19 has been marked as World Humanitarian Day since 2009 because it is also the day back on Aug. 19, 2003 when 22 UN aid workers were murdered by terrorists who attacked the UN headquarters at the Canal Hotel in Baghdad.

Earlier on Tuesday, UN Under-Secretary-General for Operational Support Atul Khare, accompanied by survivors of the bombing, led a remembrance ceremony at the UN headquarters in New York on behalf of the secretary-general, who is visiting Japan.

UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Tom Fletcher, echoing Guterres, said "even one attack against a humanitarian colleague is an attack on all of us and on the people we serve. Attacks on this scale, with zero accountability, are a shameful indictment of international inaction and apathy."

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said that most of the aid workers killed were national staff serving their communities, attacked in the line of duty or in their homes. In Gaza, 181 humanitarian workers were killed in 2024, the most in the world, while in Sudan, over 60 others lost their lives.

OCHA said that in Gaza, 520 aid workers, mostly staff from the UN Relief Agency for Palestine Refugees, known as UNRWA, have been killed since the start of the conflict in October 2023, making it the deadliest place for humanitarians.

Dujarric said aid workers in Gaza courageously put themselves in harm's way to keep others alive while struggling to feed themselves and their own families. The world can not look away while attacks on aid workers and on the very people they try to help have become routine.

"Over the past 24 hours, we've received more reports of casualties in shooting incidents that occurred along routes designated for our convoys, where crowds often wait to take supplies from the back of trucks," said the spokesman.

In the same past 24 hours, the spokesman said that strikes and shelling were reported across five neighborhoods of Gaza City, with reports of tanks and ground troops advancing.

Dujarric pointed out that UN and non-governmental organization (NGO) officials working in the occupied Palestinian territory warned in a joint statement on Monday of the impact of the intensified offensive in Gaza City announced by Israeli authorities, which will result in mass displacement of human beings.

He said the world body and NGO partners reported that their teams will remain in Gaza City to provide life-saving support as part of their commitment to serve people wherever they are.

"Starvation in Gaza persists, as incoming supplies remain far from sufficient and do not necessarily reach the most vulnerable," OCHA said, calling for a significant scale-up of private-sector operations, a full facilitation of community-based deliveries by a wide range of humanitarian organizations, with supplies allowed to enter through all available crossings, including directly into the northern part of Gaza. ■