DUBAI: Humanitarian workers around the world are confronting a dangerous paradox: as conflicts multiply, humanitarian needs rise and funding falls, aid workers are being asked to reach more people in more difficult conditions while facing growing risks themselves.
Wednesday marks World Humanitarian Day, observed every year on Aug. 19 to honor humanitarian workers killed or injured while helping people affected by conflict, disasters and other crises.
The day has its origins in one of the darkest attacks on humanitarian workers in recent history. On Aug. 19, 2003, a bomb exploded at the UN’s Baghdad headquarters, killing 22 humanitarian workers, including the UN’s Special Representative for Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello.
Five years later, the UN General Assembly designated Aug. 19 as World Humanitarian Day, with the first observance held in 2009.
The day is both a memorial and a call to action: a reminder of the risks aid workers face, but also a demand that governments and armed groups respect the laws protecting humanitarian workers and the people they serve.
Those risks remain at historically high levels.
The Aid Worker Security Database, maintained by Humanitarian Outcomes, recorded 350 humanitarian workers killed in major security incidents in 2025, making it the second-deadliest year since the database began.
A further 322 were wounded, 235 were kidnapped and 280 were detained or arrested, meaning 1,187 aid workers were victims of major security incidents during the year.
The figure represented only a limited improvement on 2024, when 387 aid workers were killed — the highest annual total recorded. The number killed in 2025 was still higher than in any year before 2023.
Gaza was the deadliest context, with 186 aid workers killed, while Sudan recorded a record 71 deaths. The Democratic Republic of the Congo, South Sudan, Ukraine, Ethiopia, Syria, Haiti, Chad and Cameroon were also among the most dangerous places for humanitarian workers.
Around 100 members of UNRWA staff are Palestinians who have been displaced multiple times. (AFP)
The figures expose an accountability gap. Humanitarian workers are protected under international humanitarian law, yet attacks against them are rarely followed by transparent investigations, prosecutions or convictions.
For aid workers on the ground, the consequences are immediate.
Roland Friedrich, director of UN Relief and Works Agency affairs in the West Bank, told Arab News agencies are operating in environments where reaching people in need can carry significant risks.
Friedrich said UNRWA supports around 5 million Palestinian refugees across the region and has around 11,000 staff working in Gaza despite multiple impediments to their work. One of their biggest challenges is settler violence.
“Staff on the ground take a lot of risk. Settler violence is an element that instills a lot of fear, particularly because there’s seemingly very little accountability,” Friedrich said.
The Aid Worker Security Database recorded 350 humanitarian workers killed in major security incidents in 2025. (AFP)
“What we’ve seen in the West Bank is a massive shrinking of humanitarian space since the Gaza war started. We are facing huge access difficulties … Settler violence makes it very dangerous to move in the West Bank.”
In January, UNRWA’s headquarters in East Jerusalem were demolished by the Israeli military following a law banning the agency’s operations in Israel and occupied East Jerusalem. Friedrich and his team were forced to leave and continue their work remotely from Jordan.
“There is a clear climate of intimidation and violence our workers face in the West Bank,” he said. “There are 4,600 staff in the West Bank at the moment and they have to move around regularly in UN vehicles.
“UN vehicles are immune from search and UN premises are inviolable. But that is not what we see in the West Bank. There’s a growing disrespect when it comes to the UN flag.”
UNRWA is also currently unable to bring food assistance and other supplies into the Gaza Strip because of Israeli restrictions. The agency relies on other humanitarian aid partners to deliver aid.
A UNRWA worker delivers food aid to families in need in Gaza City during the COVID-19 pandemic. (AFP)
For staff themselves, the danger is compounded by the fact that many are also experiencing the crises they are trying to alleviate.
Around 100 members of UNRWA staff are Palestinians who have been displaced multiple times. Friedrich said this often creates a sense of responsibility to help other Palestinians who are in need and can be an extra mental load to bear.
“I think that the ability to help and work in such a context can be a way of dealing with trauma in the short term,” he said. “But make no mistake, the psychological impact of our staff in regards to this is of course severe and the same applies to those affected in the West Bank.”
Although it is part of the job, Friedrich said the worsening situation in Gaza and the West Bank makes putting on a brave face even harder for UNRWA staff, yet they show up every day and provide various types of aid for those who need it the most.
“I have the highest respect for both my colleagues in UNRWA and of course for every other humanitarian worker at the front line risking their lives every day to save others,” he added.
71 humanitarian workers were killed in Sudan in 2025, according to the Aid Worker Security Database. (AFP)
The dangers facing aid workers are mirrored in Sudan, where the humanitarian crisis has become one of the world’s largest and most difficult to reach.
Angela Kearney, UNICEF’s Sudan representative, told Arab News the agency’s staff are forced to navigate unsafe environments where civilian infrastructure and humanitarian convoys come under attack.
“Despite the risks, our colleagues and partners continue to go to some of the most difficult places in Sudan because children cannot wait for the situation to become safe before they receive assistance,” she said.
The combination of conflict, displacement and shrinking resources is also placing pressure on agencies in countries that have hosted refugees for years.
Save the Children reported in 2025 that more than 520 million children live in active conflict zones and an estimated 32 million children are refugees and asylum seekers.
Children are often the first to suffer from malnutrition and disease when aid is disrupted. (UNICEF Sudan/Supplied)
The scale of the humanitarian crisis makes it difficult to ensure children are not forgotten, Rawand Al-Natour, a spokesperson at Save the Children Jordan, told Arab News.
When funding is cut, humanitarian organizations are forced to scale back programs or operations and children can be among those most severely affected.
“Children are not simply smaller adults,” Al-Natour said.
“Even short interruptions to humanitarian assistance can have devastating consequences. Children are often the first to suffer from malnutrition and disease when food, water, health and nutrition services are disrupted.
“They are also more vulnerable to exploitation and abuse when protection services disappear, while disruptions to education can have long-term consequences for their learning and development.
In 2025, more than 520 million children live in active conflict zones. (Save the Children Jordan/Supplied)
“Our priority is to sustain programs and continue serving children, caregivers and program participants, particularly those facing the greatest vulnerabilities.”
According to a 2026 UNHCR report, Jordan hosts approximately 380,000 refugees, with almost 90 percent of them being Syrian refugees.
Jordan received an influx of refugees following the outbreak of civil war in Syria in 2011. At the time, the majority required life saving humanitarian aid and assistance.
UNHCR spokesperson Yousef Ramzi Taha told Arab News that many of these refugees have been living in Jordan for more than a decade and are no longer in dire need of emergency relief.
But the main challenge remains in helping refugees access sustainable opportunities while supporting host communities.
One in 35 people required urgent humanitarian assistance and relief in 2025, yet response plans that year reached the lowest funding levels in 10 years. (AFP)
“In Jordan, many refugees remain dependent on assistance to cover basic needs such as rent, healthcare, and essential services, yet funding shortfalls have put increasing pressure on humanitarian programs,” said Taha.
“When funding shortfalls become severe and prolonged, difficult decisions become unavoidable … This forces humanitarian organizations to make extremely difficult choices about how to prioritize limited resources and focus on the most urgent vulnerabilities.”
The problem, humanitarian agencies say, is therefore not simply a shortage of money or a shortage of aid workers. It is the simultaneous erosion of both the resources available to respond to crises and the space in which that response can safely take place.
Taha said the most immediate requirement for humanitarian agencies around the world is a sustained and predictable form of funding.
Indeed, one in 35 people required urgent humanitarian assistance and relief in 2025, according to UN reports. Yet response plans that year faced a 20 percent single-year funding drop, reaching the lowest funding levels in 10 years.
