More aid workers have been killed in 2024 than in any other year, UN says

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GENEVA (AP) — More aid workers, health care staffers, delivery personnel and other humanitarians have been killed in 2024 than in any other single year, the United Nations reported Friday.

Bloodshed in the Middle East has been the single-biggest cause of the 281 deaths among humanitarians globally this year, according to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

“Before the year is even over, 2024 has become the deadliest on record for humanitarian personnel worldwide,” OCHA spokesman Jens Laerke said. He told reporters in Geneva the figure surpassed the previous record of 280 deaths for the whole of last year.

Humanitarians "are working courageously and selflessly in places like Gaza, Sudan, Lebanon, Ukraine and so on. They show the best humanity has to offer, and they are getting killed in return — in record numbers,” he said.

“These numbers will send shockwaves around the humanitarian community, especially on the front lines of the response,” he added.

The U.N. said the figures come from the Aid Worker Security Database, a U.S.-funded project run by a Britain-based group called Humanitarian Outcomes.

A total of 268 of the humanitarians killed — including from non-U.N. organizations like the Red Cross and Red Crescent — were national staff, while 13 were international staff.

Some 230 aid workers have been killed in occupied Palestinian areas, the database showed Friday. It did not break out whether that was Gaza or the West Bank.

Laerke said the threats to aid workers “extend beyond Gaza, with high levels of violence, kidnappings injuries, harassment and arbitrary detention" reported in Afghanistan, Congo, South Sudan, Sudan, Ukraine, Yemen and elsewhere.

OCHA said a total of 333 humanitarians have been killed since the latest conflict between Israel and the militant Hamas group erupted when the militants stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting another 250.

The death toll in the Gaza Strip from the 13-month-old war has surpassed 44,000, local health officials said Thursday. The Gaza Health Ministry does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count, but it has said that more than half of the fatalities are women and children. The Israeli military says it has killed over 17,000 militants, without providing evidence.