This World Humanitarian Day, We Call for Expanded Protections for Humanitarian Workers
Statement from Project HOPE’s President and CEO, Rabih Torbay
This World Humanitarian Day marks a grim milestone: a record number of humanitarian workers killed in 2023. 280 lives lost, 224 wounded, and 91 kidnapped last year. 2024 is appearing to be just as deadly with 176 killed since the start of the year.
456 colleagues, friends, and family members who won’t return home. 456 remarkable individuals who dedicated their lives to be in service of others.
Far too many of these deaths were preventable. Many would even qualify as crimes against humanity or, in some cases, war crimes.
Over the past year, we have witnessed a devastating deterioration of the enforcement of International Humanitarian Law (IHL) across the globe in which the people and the places that are supposed to be protected have become targets. Hospitals, ambulances, refugee camps, and humanitarian zones have been ravaged by senseless airstrikes, armed attacks, and looting. First responders have been killed transporting the wounded. Aid convoys have been systematically attacked while delivering lifesaving aid. Doctors and nurses have been kidnapped and imprisoned. Children’s hospitals have been reduced to rubble. Critical humanitarian entry points have been blocked by tanks or armed gangs. Innocent civilians are dying en masse.
Humanitarian workers know the risks we take when we run toward the burning building, so to speak – when we work in dangerous contexts in places like Ukraine, Gaza, Sudan, Ethiopia, Haiti, and more – but so many of our local colleagues have no choice. They are living in the midst of crisis, risking everything to support their own communities. Far too many – including our own beloved colleague Mohammed Hamed Mansour Madi – pay the ultimate price.
But where is the accountability? Our world leaders have an obligation to not only condemn these grave violations, but to investigate, prosecute, and criminalize those who commit them.
The world is facing an unprecedented number of humanitarian crises, requiring an unprecedented amount of humanitarian support. And yet, the disturbing trend of indifference and lack of accountability makes a mockery out of those who risk their lives day in and day out to save others. It exacerbates the dangerous and precarious conditions that our colleagues and partners face while delivering humanitarian assistance. And, in many cases, it results in organizations pausing or halting operations, leaving innocent people without the aid they so desperately need to survive.
This World Humanitarian Day, we not only honor and remember our fallen colleagues, but we demand that our leaders hold perpetrators accountable and honor the IHL protections that have been in place for 160 years.
