116 aid workers were killed in 2022 in violent attacks, according to a report released Thursday by the research organization Humanitarian Outcomes. Last year, 444 humanitarian staff were victims of mayor attacks, the Aid Worker Security Report 2023 said. The most violent context for humanitarian workers continued to be South Sudan, followed by Mali, Myanmar, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Syria.
Ukraine, Ethiopia, the Central African Republic, Haiti, and Burkina Faso were among the ten most dangerous places for humanitarian and development staff.
Last year, in 235 separate attacks, 139 aid workers were injured, and 185 kidnapped. Overall, attacks against aid workers were marginally lower in 2022, compared to 461 attacks in 2021, but there was a significant surge in kidnappings. The number of fatalities decreased by 18 percent from 2021.
Highlighting the dangers that local aid workers often face in humanitarian emergencies around the world, another trend in 2022 was the continued rise in casualties among national and local aid organizations.
Despite having far larger staffs, international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have seen a decrease in attacks, while those of their local partners are on the rise. According to the report, the number of casualties experienced by national NGOs has surpassed that of international NGOs for the first time since 2013.
While UN humanitarian agencies and most internationally operating NGOs have dedicated security staff and standard procedures to enable operations amid conflicts and insecure environments, casualties have risen over the past two decades due to the persistence and proliferation of conflict-driven humanitarian crises, and the growing number of aid workers responding to them.
“The toll has not been borne equally, however. A long-term look at the data shows that as international organizations have grown larger, so their incident rates have decreased, while more and more of the attacks have affected their national NGO counterparts instead”, the report noted.
The 2023 Aid Worker Security Report analyzed this trend, and examined security training, an area of security risk management that exemplifies the disparities in the sector. Training resources are disproportionately allocated toward international staff in less risky roles.
Humanitarian Outcomes said training for aid workers operating in high-risk environments, particularly the in-person, experiential courses that simulate incident scenarios and those that teach critical first aid skills, are costly.
However, despite a dearth of hard evidence proving their effectiveness, the consensus among humanitarian security professionals seems to be that these courses, if well-designed and context-specific, are worth the investment.
These latest verified casualty statistics are based on data from the Aid Worker Security Database (AWSD). Initiated in 2005, AWSD records major incidents of violence against aid workers, with incident reports from 1997 through the present. The Database is a project of Humanitarian Outcomes and supported by USAID.
According to AWSD, 2023 is set to become another year of high aid worker casualties. So far this year, 62 humanitarian workers have been killed in crises around the world, 84 have been wounded and 34 kidnapped.
South Sudan has ranked highest in insecurity for several consecutive years. 40 attacks on aid workers and 22 fatalities have been reported as of August 16. Sudan is a close second, with 17 attacks on humanitarians and 19 fatalities reported so far this year. Other aid worker casualties have been recorded in the Central African Republic, Mali, Somalia and Ukraine.
Humanitarian Outcomes is a London-based team of specialist consultants providing research and policy advice for humanitarian aid agencies and donor governments. The organization is registered as a private limited company in the United Kingdom.
Further information
Full Text: Aid Worker Security Report 2023 - Security Training in the Humanitarian Sector: Issues of equity and effectiveness, Humanitarian Outcomes, released August 17, 2023
https://www.humanitarianoutcomes.org/sites/default/files/publications/ho_aidworkersectyreport_2023_d.pdf
Website: Aid Worker Security Database (AWSD)
https://www.aidworkersecurity.org