In a rare joint statement on Wednesday, the world's humanitarian leaders strongly condemned the growing and blatant violations of international humanitarian and human rights law in conflicts across the globe. They warned that the problem lies not in the absence of legal rules, but in the failure to uphold them, the erosion of accountability, and the refusal to act, even in the face of atrocities.
“Across conflicts, civilians, including children, are killed, injured, and displaced at an alarming scale. Sexual violence is used as a tactic of war, overwhelmingly affecting women and girls and devastating lives,” the statement said.
“Homes, schools, places of worship, hospitals, including maternal wards, are destroyed or damaged, as are civilian infrastructure and assets, such as water systems, transport network, markets, food production. Essential services are collapsing. Forced displacement is accelerating. “
The statement, issued during Protection of Civilians Week, stressed that conflict-induced hunger and famine are spreading, often driven by unlawful siege tactics, starvation and the arbitrary denial of humanitarian access, despite clear obligations under International Humanitarian Law (IHL) and the legal framework reaffirmed by UN Security Council resolutions.
Wednesday's statement was issued by the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC), the UN system's highest forum for coordinating humanitarian efforts. It brings together the heads of leading UN and non-UN humanitarian agencies. The IASC is led by Tom Fletcher, the Emergency Relief Coordinator and head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
The leaders who issued the statement included the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) as well as the heads of OCHA, the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), the World Health Organization (WHO), the World Food Programme (WFP) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM). Representatives from CARITAS and Save the Children also signed the statement, as they represent the world's humanitarian NGOs.
The humanitarian leaders also highlighted the unprecedented toll on aid workers, with more than 1,000 humanitarian personnel having been killed in the past three years alone. So far in 2026, 144 humanitarian workers have been reported killed, injured, abducted or detained.
“Often the first to respond, staff from national and local organizations and community initiatives pay an unacceptably high toll. Many women-led-organizations addressing lifesaving protection and gender-based violence are being attacked,” they said.
The heads of the world’s leading humanitarian organizations stressed that the laws of war are clear and apply to all parties and called on UN member states and the UN Security Council to uphold their responsibility to protect civilians.
“Wars have rules that apply to all parties to conflict. The problem is not a lack of law. The problem is the failure to uphold them consistently, the erosion of accountability and inaction, even in the face of atrocities,” the statement said.
"Protecting civilians is a legal obligation and a moral imperative. For the sake of our shared humanity, rules that protect civilians must be upheld."
OCHA: Protecting civilians in armed conflict is "the minimum that humanity and civilization require"
Meanwhile, Edem Wosornu, Director of the Crisis Response Division at OCHA, briefed the Security Council at an open debate on the protection of civilians in armed conflicts today, speaking on behalf of UN relief chief Tom Fletcher.
She warned that civilians are “all too often not collateral damage. They are the target.”
“Explosive weapons continue to tear through towns and cities, destroying not only lives but the systems that sustain them such as power grids, water networks, schools, and hospitals,” Wosornu said.
“Health care is under attack. Ten years after this Council adopted Resolution 2286 on the protection of health care in armed conflict, the situation has only gotten worse.”
Although the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 2286 in 2016 that demands the protection of the wounded, sick, and medical personnel, violence, attacks, and threats against healthcare workers and facilities continue with impunity. Last year, the United Nations recorded more than 1,350 attacks on medical care facilities in 18 different conflicts.
“Hospitals and ambulances were hit. Medical personnel were killed, detained, intimidated, or criminalized simply for doing their jobs,” the OCHA official added.
She stressed that sexual violence remains widespread, citing the United Nations' report of over 9,300 cases last year, the vast majority of which were against women and girls. Many of these survivors face significant challenges in accessing the basic assistance they require.
“We know that number unfortunately is much higher,” she added.
Citing a stark rise in documented civilian deaths, attacks on health care, hunger, sexual violence, and threats to humanitarian workers, she stressed that these trends are not inevitable, but the result of deliberate choices.
“The choice by parties of conflict to ignore their obligations to protect civilians, and, too often, to target them,” she said.
Wosornu also warned that some actors were adopting “increasingly permissive interpretations of international humanitarian law,” while others were choosing “to subordinate the protection of civilians to claims of military necessity or exceptional threat.”
She added that states were allowing “impunity” to prevail and using technology “to increase lethality, sow devastation, and spread misinformation” instead of protecting civilians.
The OCHA official also deplored ”the choice to attack the United Nations Charter, humanitarian norms, and the tools built over decades – that extraordinary scaffolding meant to protect people from and during war.”
She echoed the IASC leaders’ concern that “food has become a weapon of war.” Urging UN member states to uphold international humanitarian law without exception, she concluded that “protecting civilians requires genuine commitment that translates into concrete action.”
“It is a responsibility of this Council and of every member state that signed the United Nations Charter,” she said.
“It cannot be outsourced, it cannot be postponed, it cannot be diluted.”
Further information
Full text: Statement by Principals of the IASC, Protecting Civilians in Armed Conflict is a Responsibility that Member States and the UN Security Council Must Uphold, Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC), published on May 20, 2026
https://interagencystandingcommittee.org/inter-agency-standing-committee/statement-principals-iasc-protecting-civilians-armed-conflict-responsibility-member-states-and-un
Full text: Briefing to the Security Council on the protection of civilians in armed conflict by Edem Wosornu, Director, Crisis Response Division for OCHA, on behalf of Tom Fletcher, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, delivered on May 20, 2026
https://www.unocha.org/news/ocha-tells-security-council-protecting-civilians-cannot-be-outsourced-postponed-or-diluted