Over 1,000 aid workers killed in three years as UN demands accountability

More than 1,010 humanitarian workers have been killed in the line of duty over the past three years, with at least 326 losing their lives across 21 countries in 2025 alone, the United Nations (UN) Security Council heard on Wednesday, according to a UN News report. Tom Fletcher, head of the UN’s aid coordination agency OCHA, told ambassadors in New York that the people killed were distributing food, water, shelter, and medicine — often travelling in clearly marked convoys. “This is not an accidental escalation. It is the collapse of protection,” he said.

Of the total killed over three years, more than 560 died in Gaza and the West Bank, 130 in Sudan, 60 in South Sudan, and 25 each in Ukraine and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Fletcher stressed that humanitarians are not just being killed — they are also being restricted, harassed, arrested, and deliberately lied about. “We are told where not to go, whom not to help,” he told ambassadors, calling the broader environment a “lawless, bellicose, selfish and violent world.”

The figures come despite a 2024 Security Council resolution — Resolution 2730, adopted 14 votes in favor with Russia abstaining — calling on all states to protect humanitarian personnel in line with international law. UN security chief Gilles Michaud reported that in the past year alone, there were 14 abductions, 145 arrests and detentions, 441 acts of intimidation, 62 attacks on UN premises, and 84 attacks on UN vehicles. “Perpetrators are rarely held accountable — they are rarely named and shamed, let alone prosecuted,” he said.

Elyse Mosquini of the International Committee of the Red Cross put it plainly: “We are losing our humanity in war.” She warned that deliberate misinformation campaigns are increasingly portraying aid workers as legitimate targets, and that every attack left without consequence emboldens the next. The UN security system for humanitarians, Michaud added, is stretched to its limit — underfunded, ignored, and undermined at a moment when the need for protection has never been greater.