Everything you Need to Know about Attacks on Humanitarian Workers
Posted by ricky26 on January 14th, 2016
Humanitarian aid workers are those who manage and develop emergency response programs within designated geographical regions which have been subjected to war, natural disasters or other environmental or developmental issues. Humanitarian aid workers belonging to United Nations organizations, NGOs and PVOs etc. are selfless and generous human beings who give their all to serve humanity and help the neediest during the time of crisis.The humanitarian aid sector has grown significantly over the past two decades, so has the number of volunteers. The humanitarian aid spending across the globe has increased over 400% since 2000, to US billion at present, with the number of aid workers tripling over the same time period.
With the escalating numbers of international aid workers, the violent attacks on humanitarian workers also have increased exponentially in the recent times. Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Syria, Mali, Sudan, Somalia and Palestinian Authority, just to mention a few - the serious conflicts in various countries across the planet have resulted in increasing lethal and non-lethal attacks on humanitarian aid workers by some of the major terrorist groups, insurgents and belligerent parties with principles and ideologies that disregard the rules of war. Aid workers are kidnapped and tortured to the extreme level and in some extreme cases, brutally killed, either in the fog of war or due to their very efforts of helping the needy people. The real problems related to humanitarian insecurity are really surprising and troubling ones.
There are more than just a few reasons for escalating violent attacks such as the rising number of deployed humanitarian workers, the increasingly unstable and dangerous environments in which they work, and the erosion of the perception of independence and neutrality, among other reasons. In 2012, approximately 167 aid workers were attacked whereas in 2013, 461 incidents of major violence against aid workers were recorded, making it the most violent year ever in terms of absolute numbers.
As a matter of the fact, attacks, both lethal and non-lethal, on UN humanitarian aid workers are increasing significantly and showing no signs of slowing down. Scholars and intellectuals from all around the world are putting in hard efforts to understand where, how and why international aid workers are being targets of such serious attacks. Humanitarian aid workers are often pushed to work more extensively in remote locations, do more sophisticated work for human welfare, and undertake an array of development and peace-building tasks more than ever. Yet most of them have to suffer serious injuries or even sacrifice their life for such noble deeds, which is certainly not acceptable as far as humanity is concerned. If you want to learn more about UN aid worker attacks across the globe, then Academia.edu is the ideal online source for you.
Visit Academia.edu for more information.
