Aid workers deserve better protection

Two pertinent anniversaries for our times fall this month. On Aug. 12, the world marked the 75th anniversary of the adoption of the Geneva Conventions, which are the cornerstone of international humanitarian law. And Aug. 19 is World Humanitarian Day, which honors all those who work selflessly in the aftermath of disasters or during conflicts. This date was chosen to recognize the sacrifice of UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Sergio Vieira de Mello and 21 others who died in the bombing of the Canal Hotel in Baghdad in 2003. In London, a nonreligious service will be held at Westminster Abbey to honor all those who demonstrate the best of humanitarian traditions and principles — humanity, independence and impartiality.
It is a day that deserves notice, not least throughout the Middle East, which has seen so many of the conflicts and natural disasters that have called upon the best of human responses in the midst of the greatest difficulty. But it should also cause shame and reflection among us all as to why evidence suggests that only lip service is now being paid to the protection of aid workers offered by the Geneva Conventions, which aims to keep them “free from violence to life.”
UN figures show that the number of aid workers killed worldwide in 2023 — 261 — was more than double the year before. And this is in addition to the 274 who were kidnapped or wounded. Information from the Aid Worker Security Database shows how depressingly widespread the risk of danger is, as it details the significant 2023 incidents that affected aid workers in Congo, Ethiopia, Sudan, South Sudan, Mali, Myanmar, Palestine, Syria and Ukraine.
There should be no hierarchy in such figures — each life lost or affected is important. But if the horrors of the conflict in Gaza do not focus the attention of those responsible for conflict and peacemaking, it is hard to imagine what would. The Aid Worker Security Database had documented, by early May this year, 234 aid worker deaths stemming from 308 incidents of them being targeted in Gaza. This is simply the latest and most graphic evidence that the Geneva Conventions’ effectiveness is being challenged in conflicts across the globe.
If this continues, with aid workers being driven away from their roles as a result, it would add another layer of catastrophe to the lives of many innocent civilians. The UN estimates some 53.8 million people in the Middle East require assistance, mostly as a result of conflict. Aid workers help these people by providing shelter and delivering food, water and medicines to combat malnutrition, disease and the destruction of economies and livelihoods.

Evidence suggests that only lip service is now being paid to the protection of aid workers offered by the Geneva Conventions. 

Alistair Burt

But who are they? Who puts their life on the line to go to the aid of those in difficulty, when they could easily turn away and find something else to do with their time? They are more than just statistics and deserve pages of personal coverage.
There is sometimes a sense in the West that aid agencies are staffed largely by international personnel, selflessly working beyond their own comfortable boundaries to help those who are less fortunate. And indeed there are many, such as the remarkable Australian woman Zomi Frankcom. She had joined World Central Kitchen in 2018, working to cook and deliver food during floods in Bangladesh and Pakistan, earthquakes in Morocco, COVID-19 among the Navajo Nation and amid food shortages in Venezuela, before her life was taken by an Israeli missile in April this year in Gaza. She was a woman “curious and inquisitive about other cultures and who nourished the spirits she served,” according to World Central Kitchen.
But the vast majority of aid workers — and the casualties — are locals responding to the plight of those around them and they deserve notice. Of the 595 aid worker victims of violence in 2023, 569 were local nationals and only 26 were international. Saifeddin Issam Ayad Abutaha was killed along with Frankcom. He was Palestinian and had graduated from university in the UAE. World Central Kitchen reported that he had returned to Gaza to work in business with his father at the Great Arab Mills Company before the conflict began. There are hundreds more worldwide like Abutaha, locals who are driven to serve for the benefit of their own people when they are caught up in strife. What lives they could have had.
So, what is to be done? A concerted series of ceasefires and resolutions to conflicts would be best for all. States should recognize their obligations under the Geneva Conventions and know that any breaches are war crimes for which there is no escape or impunity. However, in the likely event of neither of the above happening, then aid support to the most vulnerable should not stop. One anonymous female Afghan aid worker is this week publicly pleading against the cutting of aid and support for those working with her among women in Afghanistan. She says aid cuts are a “punishment felt most keenly by women who are already suffering from persecution.”
We will honor aid workers at Westminster Abbey on Monday. But the best way to show how much we value them is to ensure that there are no more aid worker victims at all.

• Alistair Burt is a former UK Member of Parliament who has twice held ministerial positions in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office — as Parliamentary Under Secretary of State from 2010 to 2013 and as Minister of State for the Middle East from 2017 to 2019. X: @AlistairBurtUK