We all risk becoming bystanders as parents, children, and babies starve by Carl Skau Acting Executive Director of the World Food Programme   25 Aug. 2026   Remarks by Carl Skau, Acting Executive Director of the World Food Programme (WFP), during the United Nations Security Council open debate: Food Under Fire: The United Nations Security Council’s Role in Mitigating Global and Local Food Crises:   "In the last 10 years, the number of acutely food insecure has increased threefold while funding for our joint operations has plummeted. And as the Secretary General has pointed out, it's more dangerous than ever for our colleagues in the field.   In my role at WFP, I have the privilege to frequently visit frontline teams in the most complex of environments. Today, I will draw from that first hand experience, sharing with you what the conflict hunger cycle really looks like in practice, and of course, point to how the Security Council, in our view, can and should respond.   I spent last week in Somalia, I saw camps full of families who had their lives and their homes and their lands taken away when non-state armed groups arrived.   One family with four children that I sat down to speak with had left a multi-generation farm where they had farmed, fed themselves, and made an income. Armed groups had rolled in, demanding taxes to keep farming. So they had decided it was safer to flee to a displacement camp some 100 kilometers by foot.   They had lost everything, including one child on that journey. The other three kids were now growing up in a camp and without a school to go to. These sudden insurgencies keep erupting across Somalia.   Like in Baidoa last week, fighting prevented my planned visit there. But much worse, it prevented our operations. Some 5,000 kids did not get WFP nutritious food in Baidoa that day.   In addition to insecurity, hunger in Somalia is also driven by two consecutive droughts. And the Super El Nino is expected to bring heavy flooding in November. This all adds to a catastrophic malnutrition and food crisis.   Nearly two million children suffering from acute and severe malnutrition. A third of the population, six million people, face acute hunger or worse. And Somalis are facing this perfect storm at the very moment that global engagement is at its lowest.   Support from humanitarian action is shrinking. One key donor no longer provides any funding, and no others are stepping in. In 2022, facing a similar situation, WFP and partners prevented famine. Thanks to donor support we scaled up assistance to nearly 10 million people. Today, WFP is only assisting some 600,000, one in 10 in acute need. And millions are left out. Many could die. Famine is getting closer.   This should be a wake-up call for everyone. It's not only an issue for Somalia, because when families can't put food on their table, they are left with three choices - starve, move, or rebel. These are perfect conditions for armed groups, criminal gangs, exploitative businesses, to recruit vulnerable young people.   So in Somalia, but also in places like Guatemala and the Democratic Republic of the Congo over the past few weeks, I've spoken to parents terrified that their children will soon be in military camps, street corners, or mines instead of in schools.   Beyond this vicious cycle that we have been warning you for years now, there is a new dimension that needs your attention and your action. Consequences of conflict are now also being transmitted thousands of miles through interconnected economies and trading systems, across borders and seas.   Some have spoken about a double choke point crisis, the Strait of Hormuz and the Red Sea. But yesterday, the Secretary General rightly came with warnings about a triple choke point crisis, adding the recent escalation in the Black Sea. These serious disruptions to maritime trade now threatens to push tens of millions more people into food insecurity.   Starting with the conflict in the Gulf, an oil tanker anchored in the Strait of Hormuz can mean one less meal a day for a child in Sudan, where basic food costs are up almost 40% since February this year. And food systems rely on fuel, irrigation, transport, milling. So when oil prices go up, so does the price of flour, rice and vegetables.   And the suffocation of fertilizer exports has also hit this planting season hard across Africa and Asia. We are deeply worried about the lag effects this will have on upcoming harvests.   At WFP, we have also been exposed to 20% higher shipping costs, 35% more on fuel for our airdrops and our humanitarian flights, meaning less assistance for the people we serve.   In Yemen, the de facto Houthi authority strikes on commercial vessels in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. This has led to a further reduction of trade in the Red Sea and is compromising another export route, regional transit to the Suez Canal.   It means further rising prices for people across the globe, but it is also hitting Yemen itself particularly hard, a country that imports 90 percent of its food.   And third, escalating Russian and Ukrainian attacks in the Black Sea. Russian and Ukrainian exports equal one third of global wheat supply. Grain shipments through the Bosphorus Strait are now down 40% year on year.   Import dependent countries like Somalia, who buys 90% of its cereal, are highly exposed. Also, there are longer term risks if the Black Sea ports and shipping lanes stay shut. Farmers will simply have less income and incentives to plant crops for 2027.   The world simply cannot afford these layers of crisis. How many choking points before we are completely suffocated? There is just no time to lose.   Building on the Secretary General's call today, WFP looks to the Security Council for urgent and concrete action. To break the conflict-hunger cycle and building on the Secretary General's call, I'm coming to you with five circuit breakers.   First, instigate measures to stop conflict in one region creating hunger in another.   Initiatives that ensure free flow of humanitarian aid, commercial food exports, agricultural via maritime or land corridors are urgently needed.   Second, Act on warning signs.   Take action before famine is declared and before agricultural seasons are lost. Just look at Sudan. With decisive early action, we may have prevented famine last year in the world's worst hunger crisis.   We all saw the atrocities in El-Fasher coming, but the international community, including this council, failed to act on those warnings. It's hard to do justice to the scale of suffering in Sudan, but it really hit me in April when I visited the Tawila camp in Darfur, where survivors of El-Fasher have gathered. I have never seen anything like it.   700,000 people in a super city of grass huts. They arrived from El-Fasher with absolutely nothing, traumatized, and they now depend on a trickle of aid to survive. The people I met there felt completely abandoned.   I can't say this strongly enough. Waiting for famine to be declared is a total failure of duty. In the last Somalia famine in 2010 to 12, nearly 260,000 people died, half of them children.   We avoided this in 2017 and in 2022 because we acted early on warnings and scaled up assistance.   Third, stronger protection for civilians, civilian infrastructure and food systems. The principles of distinction and proportionality must be respected.   I was in Lebanon in March, just a few days after the war started, meeting people whose lives had again been snatched away by strikes and evacuation orders. Overnight, they went from the daily commute to a life in shelter.   Like the family I met in the dingy abandoned hotel in Beirut, in the south of Beirut, as missiles ran down, Their world had shrunk to the size of that small hotel room. They told me that the only time they went outside was to collect the daily WFP hot meals.   Fourth, protect humanitarian personnel.   In northern Yemen, there is a growing acute hunger. But the UN is unable to intervene at this moment of extreme fragility. We have been forced to pause humanitarian work because the operating environment is simply non-existent with the targeting of our staff.   Currently, 73 UN staff, including 38 from WFP, are detained by the de facto Houthi authorities. Not a day goes by without thinking of them and of their families.   Fifth, and finally, more solidarity with the world's most vulnerable. For every story I've told you here today, there are millions untold.   I'm thinking about the women and girls I met in Afghanistan back in May. I will never forget my visit to a rural clinic outside Jalalabad. The exhausted cries of babies, the panic in the voices of their mothers.   Some had walked for hours with skeletal babies in their arms. But at this clinic, normally supported by WFP and UNICEF, we had nothing to give them. Afghanistan is today's the world's worst malnutrition crisis, but there is an appalling lack of funds.   We're currently turning away six in seven malnourished women and children. WFP hotlines are flooded with calls from parents considering suicide as their children waste away. I used to talk about taking from the hungry to feed the starving, but in the very worst hunger crisis, We are now on the verge of having nothing to give at all. We all risk becoming bystanders as parents, children, and babies starve.   Let me reassure you that at WFP and with our partners, we are doing everything possible to adapt to a new funding landscape. We are seizing the Secretary General's UN80 Reform Agenda and the humanitarian reset in full and with ambition.   We are doing our absolute best to do better with less. But we need member states to step up too, to correct course, fund humanitarian action, seek political solutions to conflicts, and reverse the normalization of hunger. We know this is possible.   A year ago, I visited Gaza around the time that famine was declared. It was like a dystopian film set. Everywhere we drove, obliterated rubble, every street filled with desperate children looking for food.   I returned in January this year, after the October ceasefire and adoption of Resolution 2803 in November. Still far from a rosy picture, that's for sure. But the ceasefire had improved somewhat food security and reversed famine.   And some people that I met had even started to have hope again. I spent time with one displaced family who had returned to their destroyed house in the southern parts of Gaza City. And they were busy trying to re-cultivate a vineyard amid the rubble to rebuild a family livelihood and tradition.   I spoke with bright teenage girls getting WFP food in a UNICEF-run makeshift school. They told me they hope to grow up as doctors, pilots and business owners. But as the Secretary General said, these are fragile gains, only a glimmer of hope.   Recovery and reconstruction are still far, far away. But it shows what is possible if there is political will. We simply can't fail the people of Gaza again, just when conditions are starting to marginally improve.   We can't pull back in Sudan just as we secure access for scaling up. And we can't disengage in Somalia and wait for famine to unfold. This Council has shown before that it can be part of breaking the vicious cycle of hunger and conflict.   Let today's meeting be the starting point for new, bold action to give hundreds of millions of people a path away from hunger and violence, back to peace and stability".   * UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres's remarks to the UN Security Council:   "I thank the Government of Denmark for chairing this urgent discussion on conflict and food security. This is an opportunity for the Council to address a dangerous and evolving reality.   Critical food systems — and the lives and livelihoods they sustain — are under attack.   Getting enough to eat is a basic human need — a need that is clearly reflected in Sustainable Development Goal 2: ending hunger. Zero hunger is achievable. But it requires tackling hunger’s many root causes — including conflict.   In Resolution 2417, this Council highlighted the link between conflict-induced food insecurity and the threat of famine, and armed conflict and violence. And it provided clear guidance to ensure the proper functioning of food systems and markets in the midst of conflict.   Today is about strengthening the implementation of that important Resolution. There is no time to lose.   Across the Sahel, farmers are driven from their fields as conflict disrupts farming, trade and livelihoods, and food insecurity worsens across the region. In Sudan, markets have been hit by drone strikes and missiles. In Haiti, gang violence has cut off entire communities.   And humanitarian workers have been denied access to assist people in desperate need — from Gaza to Mali, Myanmar and Sudan. Some have come under direct attack — and even been killed.   It is no coincidence that 2025 saw not only the highest number of armed conflicts since World War II — but also among the highest levels of global acute hunger on record, with at least 266 million people facing acute food insecurity. 2025 also marked the first time this century that two famines were confirmed simultaneously, in Sudan and Gaza. A shameful milestone.   The UN’s latest Hunger Hotspots report shows that conflict and violence are the primary drivers in 12 out of 13 hunger hotspots of greatest concern.   The link between armed conflict, violence and hunger is undeniable. We know that rising hunger can fuel displacement, fragility, instability and competition for scarce resources.   And the effects are borderless, with conflicts and violence triggering shockwaves of hunger across borders and regions.   The war in Ukraine is affecting grain and energy exports in the Black Sea, both from Ukraine and Russia. The crisis in the Middle East is another example.   The Strait of Hormuz carries around a fifth of global oil supplies, and a third of global fertilizer trade. Restrictions and closures have driven up commodity prices, and made availability plummet.   And attacks on commercial vessels in the Red Sea are further threatening supply chains for food and other commodities. For import-dependent countries, many struggling with high debt, this directly increases the cost of farming and imperils future harvests..   Resolution 2417 recognizes the need to “break the vicious cycle between armed conflict and food insecurity.” Yet the vicious cycle rolls on. So today, I call on this Council to consider measures to strengthen — and build on — this landmark Resolution.   First — Resolution 2417 must be implemented consistently and in full. For parties to conflict, this means not depriving civilians of objects indispensable to their survival — including food, crops, livestock, and drinking water supplies — and refraining from attacking, destroying, removing or rendering them useless.   It also means taking constant care to spare civilian objects necessary for food production and distribution — including farms, mills, water systems, food processing and storage sites, and transportation hubs. And it means providing humanitarian personnel with safe and unimpeded access to civilians in armed conflicts.   Too many parties to armed conflict disregard their obligations under international humanitarian law with impunity. This is unacceptable.   States must do their part to uphold and ensure respect for international humanitarian law, and use their influence to secure compliance.   And throughout, reporting on conflict-induced hunger, new famine risks, and emerging risks to food systems and humanitarian operations must be acted upon. We cannot wait for famine or catastrophic conditions to be formally confirmed. I call on this Council to act when the warning lights are flashing.   Second — food systems must be protected in their entirety. Conflicts or violence must not keep farmers from their fields, keep crops trapped in or on the ground, or keep food supplies stuck in storage.   I call on this Council to renew its support for protections for infrastructure essential to food security. That must include safeguards for farms, water systems, markets, storage facilities, ports, and supply routes. It should also reinforce safeguards for the supply of food exports, agricultural inputs and humanitarian aid — including passage across borders and seas.   Third, humanitarians must be protected. All parties to conflict have clear obligations under international humanitarian law. That includes allowing practical arrangements that enable humanitarian operations and protecting humanitarian workers as they carry out their life-saving work.   In Resolution 2417, this Council expressed its willingness to consider information on the unlawful denial of humanitarian access and take appropriate steps, including sanction measures.   I call on this Council to make every effort to ensure accountability, to keep vital humanitarian aid flowing, and to protect those delivering it.   The best protection against food insecurity is peace, and the safest conditions for peace are a world without hunger. I urge this Council to use all tools at its disposal to help prevent and end conflicts and to stop emerging risks from becoming wider crises of instability, and in particular, of food insecurity".   * Statement to the Security Council by Perrine Benoist, Co-CEO of Action Against Hunger:   "I speak to you today on behalf of the Coalition Against Conflict and Hunger, a group of global organizations working to prevent and limit the impact of conflict on food security and nutrition, and to protect civilians from conflict-induced hunger.   Resolution 2417 was unanimously adopted by this Council in 2018. It was supposed to avert famine, and it was supposed to end the vicious circle between conflict and hunger.   Yet, time and again, its provisions have been violated by parties to conflict, while implementation by the members of this Council has fallen far short from what the resolution demands.   We have recorded more than 9,300 incidents in which in over 45 countries in which conflict-related violence impacted civilian infrastructures vital to food systems, including more than 3,200 bombings of markets, agricultural lands, and water systems. And this is just the tip of the iceberg.   In Sudan, over 900 attacks on food systems have been recorded since April 2023, including livestock looting, attacks on markets, and violence against people accessing said markets. Famine has been confirmed in multiple areas of the country, while alert persists in many parts. Yet we have failed to see urgent action to bring about a meaningful resolution to the conflict.   At the same time, new conflicts have led to global macroeconomic shocks, disrupting supply chains and critical infrastructures, driving up food and fuel prices, and increasing the cost of key agricultural inputs and humanitarian aid, threatening efforts to realize the right to food everywhere.   These global disruptions have a spiraling effect. The conflict in the Gulf has impacted the agricultural production of over 80% of households: higher fuel costs, constrained agricultural inputs, fertilizer shortages are now the new normals, and we know that vulnerabilities compound.   In Sudan, simply being a woman today has become a statistically significant predictor of starvation. This is a vicious circle that we must break.   Conflict drives hunger, while hunger and the destruction of livelihoods, in turn, deeply undermine the protection of civilians, drive displacement, and fuel instability.   Sudan is now the world's largest hunger and displacement crisis, as my colleague was saying, and it's a stark reminder that hunger is not simply a consequence of conflict but part of its dynamics.   Humanitarian organizations have also had to cope with global disruptions and witness their daily impacts.   I'd like to talk about Yemen, where more than half of the children under 5—about 2.2 million— are expected to be acutely malnourished in 2026, alongside 1.3 million pregnant or breastfeeding women.   Ahmed is a 4-year-old from a remote village, and a few months ago he was diagnosed with critical severe acute malnutrition. His mother feared for his life, but thanks to life-saving therapeutic nutrition programs and treatments, he recovered and is healthy today.   But for years, procuring the supplies needed to treat acute malnutrition in Yemen has been an incredible challenge. It has now become even more difficult. The cost of sea transport for humanitarian organizations has risen by over 300%. And even more concerning, shipments face major delays.   We have to understand that the timeline for a child experiencing malnutrition is brutally short. Within 2 weeks of losing access to sufficient food, clinical signs of acute malnutrition begin to appear. Within 3 weeks, children become susceptible to common illnesses that can now kill them.   They experience severe wasting, struggle to move, and their organs begin to shut down.   Without treatment, the risk of death rises significantly. When stocks run out, this will determine our ability to save children like Ahmed.   For them, global trends are absolutely not abstract. They determine whether life-saving treatment reaches them in time or not.   As humanitarian actors, we are doing the best we can in our power to respond to support communities. We remain present, operational, and ready to scale up humanitarian responses despite facing increasingly severe constraints.   These constraints include restricted access, but also bureaucratic hurdles, criminalization, disinformation, and growing threats.   Direct attacks. More than 1,000 humanitarian workers have been killed in the last 3 years, and during the same period we recorded over 700 attacks on humanitarian food aid activities.   For decades, the humanitarian system has built the expertise to support local and national food systems and markets.   But today, massive funding cuts, shrinking access, global disruptions, and threats to food security surveillance systems are putting the quality and effectiveness of humanitarian responses at increasing risk.   The recent decision to end FEWSNET monitoring in Yemen, among other countries, is a clear example of this. As food insecurity rises, tracking systems are being lost. We are at risk of losing our capacity for early warning.   We need the access, protection, and support necessary to put that expertise into practice and invest in anticipatory actions and local solutions at scale. To do so, the coalition has 3 main asks to this council.   First, use UNHCR 2417 as an early warning and prevention tool, grounded in the perspectives of communities affected. We know what happens when food systems are destroyed. The consequences are foreseeable.   We have the warning signs: attacks on food systems, logistical and supply chain disruptions, food prices shocks; they all signal emerging risks for food security and peace.   And we have the policy frameworks. What is missing is the political will and early action to address the drivers of conflict-induced hunger at both micro and macro scales. To do so, this council must protect civil society voices, particularly those of affected communities.   As the distance grows between this hall of power and those most affected by your decisions, the council and UN member states must close that gap, reverse shrinking civil space, and invest in the information systems that underpin early action.   When reports on attacks on food systems and emerging food security risks are shared, the council must promptly and systematically respond to driving investigation, acting on recommendations set out in briefing notes, and calling for council-level action.   This matters because conflict and hunger reinforce one another in a virtual circle. Conflict drives hunger, while severe food insecurity, disrupted livelihoods, and rising food prices can deepen tensions, fuel instability, and contribute to conflict dynamics.   Ultimately, the security council must move beyond documenting hunger and act on the information on attacks on food systems before today's shocks become tomorrow's famines and security crises.   Second, we asked that you take urgent and decisive diplomatic actions to uphold international law. Condemnation rings hollow when there are not much by action.   This council must ensure that no party to a conflict uses starvation as a weapon of war, or acts in ways that exacerbate conflict-induced hunger by either attacking, destroying, removing, or rendering useless objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population.   And it must hold all perpetrators accountable. The use of siege tactics against civilians is prohibited and must never be accepted.   We call on this council to protect the humanitarian actors and infrastructures, safeguard humanitarian access, thus ensuring safe, rapid, sustained, and unimpeded actions throughout affected areas.   When food systems are disrupted, people's reliance on humanitarian assistance increases. If access is blocked, hunger deepens.   Member states should support access negotiations as well as practical solutions that guarantee safe, rapid, and predictable humanitarian access, including in context under international or national sanctions, through humanitarian exemption and diplomacy, in line with existing resolutions.   Third, we all need to invest in local food systems.   Disruptions to the global food systems are amplifying the impact of conflict on already fragile food systems. These pressures can deepen tensions, drive displacement, and further compound existing conflict dynamics.   We must therefore strive to make food systems more local, sustainable, and resilient, and pivot from a state of perpetual crisis management to one of investment in resilience.   That means prioritizing local solutions and investing in local production and resilient supply chain.   It also means reinstating quality humanitarian funding, supporting first and foremost local and national NGOs, including women-led organizations.   This council has the responsibility to prevent and manage conflict, to protect civilians, and to support accountability.   Breaking the cycle of conflict and hunger requires political action, and political action is a choice, but so is inaction. The world is watching, and it cannot wait any longer".   http://www.wfp.org/news/wfp-acting-executive-directors-briefing-un-security-council-conflict-and-hunger-remarks http://webtv.un.org/en/asset/k1w/k1w3vqjyjr http://www.icrc.org/en/statement/early-action-and-respect-for-IHL-can-prevent-acute-food-insecurity-in-armed-conflict http://coalitionagainstconflictandhunger.org/resources/ http://www.fightfoodcrises.net/hunger-hotspots http://www.ipcinfo.org/ipc-country-analysis/en/ Visit the related web page
	We need to restore respect for the norms that safeguard us all by UN OCHA, ICRC, Oxfam, WHO, agencies   Aug. 2026   World Humanitarian Day 2026: The time for consequence is now. (UN OCHA)   On World Humanitarian Day we remember and honour our colleagues who have dedicated their lives to helping people caught up in crises around the world, including those who lost their lives while doing so.   When the worst happens and lives are at risk, the people who come to help should never be targets. Yet every day, humanitarians are being killed, injured, kidnapped, detained and prevented from reaching people who need them.   In 2025, 1,187 aid workers faced major security incidents. 350 were killed. 322 were wounded. 235 were kidnapped. 280 were detained or arrested. Most were national staff serving their own communities. By August 2026, more than 80 humanitarians had already been killed, with at least another 90 injured or abducted.   Health workers are also coming under attack at an unacceptable scale. This year alone, more than 900 attacks on health care have resulted in the deaths of more than 900 health workers and patients.   Behind every person killed is a family grieving. A community with one less person to help them. A health system already under immense pressure losing another skilled pair of hands.   Flags flew at half-mast on 19 August across UN offices worldwide to remember humanitarian workers killed while helping others and stand with those who continue to serve despite the danger.   Those with power and influence must act. To protect civilians and humanitarians. Enable humanitarian access. Investigate violations. Hold those responsible to account. The time for concern is over. The time for consequence is now. The laws exist. The commitments exist. What is missing is consequence. Concern is not protection. Condemnation is not accountability.   Humanity is capable of extraordinary things. So why can we not ensure that humanitarians can reach people in need safely? When aid workers are attacked, threatened or blocked from doing their jobs, the consequences extend far beyond the individuals targeted.   Clinics close. Food deliveries stop. Protection disappears. Families are left without the support they depend on. And when hospitals, schools, water systems and other civilian infrastructure are destroyed, the damage can shape communities for generations.   This year, humanitarian organizations are working to reach 87 million people facing the most severe needs around the world. Despite insecurity, obstruction and chronic underfunding, humanitarians continue to show up and do everything they can to reach people in need. They should not have to risk their lives to do it.   The problem is not the absence of rules. It is the failure to uphold them. Parties to armed conflict are obligated to uphold international humanitarian law. All States must use their influence to prevent and bring an end to violations. Alleged violations must be investigated. Those responsible must be held to account.   Protecting humanitarians is not optional. Protecting civilians is not optional. The rules of war are not optional. What is needed now is the political will and courage to uphold them.   For the colleagues we have lost. For those doing this work every day. And for the millions of people whose lives depend on them. #ActForHumanity   Aug. 2026   We need to restore respect for the norms that safeguard us all, by Amitabh Behar - Executive Director of Oxfam international.   Today, as we mark World Humanitarian Day, we must reflect on the state of humanitarianism. Humanitarian work has always been framed upon the collective assumption that there are lines that should never be crossed, even in wars.   For a generation, we had binding international agreements that treated the act of protecting a child in need of food or a medic treating the sick and wounded as a fundamental legal right.   Today, the consensus and meaning behind these laws are gone.   Too many governments are no longer consistently defending the rules-based order that they helped create. When it suits them, some are openly disregarding international law. Others are applying it selectively, condemning their adversaries for violations while tolerating the same behaviours by their allies. Many more are simply remaining silent at times when condemnation and action are required.   When governments feel that their own geopolitical and domestic interests are more important than their legal obligations, our rules-based humanitarian system becomes diminished and corrupted.   Enforcement becomes inconsistent. Tolerance of excessive civilian casualties becomes routine. And anything becomes permissible, including the unthinkable.   Today, impunity is being allowed to flourish. Bad actors feel more empowered to break the laws that exist to make us all safer because they know they won’t be held to account.   This matters because humanitarian crises do not emerge in a vacuum. Instead, they are the direct results of these kinds of transactional political choices.   In this worldview, the protection of civilians and aid workers is no longer understood as a universal obligation as much as a commodity – something that can be bargained, withheld or selectively applied. Protection becomes a political investment that demands a political return.   We can measure the consequences of this in people’s lives. At least 1,000 aid workers have been killed in the past three years, nearly triple the toll of the previous three. In 2025, there were hundreds of attacks on humanitarian operations and 350 aid workers killed, 322 injured, 235 kidnapped, and 280 detained, according to the UN.   At Oxfam, we have lost five colleagues and partner staff in eight years and had more than 1,300 of our people caught up in at least 1,200 security incidents.   The killing of aid workers often happens in places where the belligerents are armed, funded or shielded by the same governments that are actually funding a humanitarian response.   But failing protection is not the only challenge humanitarian work faces today. Often, states impose unnecessary restrictions that prevent aid workers from carrying out their duties.   Last December, Israeli authorities told Oxfam and 36 other international organisations that in order to continue to provide humanitarian relief in Gaza and the West Bank, they had to hand over information including the personal details of staff.   These demands went against the rights and safety of our colleagues. All 37 organisations refused and were deregistered.   Israel’s actions could not immediately end our ability to reach people because we are legally entitled to operate under our registration with the Palestinian Authority (PA). But this has significantly affected our work, as we are not allowed to bring goods in and we rely on local goods, which have been inflated in price due to the war and scarcity.   Humanitarian work is also threatened by ever-dwindling funding. This year, the G7 countries made the biggest aid cuts in history – slashing development assistance by nearly a third in 2026 compared with 2024.   This is despite humanitarian needs worsening, as in the Democratic Republic of the Congo that is facing the fastest-growing Ebola outbreak on record, or in Sudan where people are dying of famine.   These funding cuts are a political choice, as are vetoes of UN Security Council action and decisions to override the binding rulings of international courts, defund UN agencies, militarise humanitarian delivery, or politicise distribution schemes run by parties to a conflict.   International humanitarian law is universal and binding. Civilians must be protected and relief facilitated. Starvation must not be used as a weapon. Aid workers, hospitals, water systems, schools and shelters must never be attacked.   Every attack on a humanitarian worker should trigger an independent investigation and, when a crime is proven, prosecution. UNSC Resolution 2730 demanded exactly this two years ago.   The selection of the next UN secretary-general will be a good test of our collective responsibility. This process must bring about genuine accountability against those who violate international law. We need to restore respect for the norms that safeguard us all.   World Humanitarian Day is about remembering all humanitarian workers who lost their lives while caring for others. But remembrance without accountability and action becomes a tolerance of the unjustifiable. We must do better: #protectaidworkers   http://www.worldhumanitarianday.org/ http://www.ifrc.org/article/why-world-cannot-normalize-killing-those-who-help http://www.savethechildren.net/news/world-humanitarian-day-national-staff-bear-brunt-record-violence-against-humanitarian-workers http://www.wvi.org/newsroom/attacks-humanitarian-workers-surge-under-new-armed-conflict-tactics-leaving-children http://alliancecpha.org/en http://www.rescue.org/press-release/aid-worker-deaths-near-record-high-2025-driven-gaza-and-sudan http://reliefweb.int/report/world/acaps-global-humanitarian-access-overview-access-conditions-crisis-affected-countries-july-2026 http://www.acaps.org/en/thematics/all-topics/humanitarian-access-overview http://www.unocha.org/news/world-humanitarian-day-un-relief-chief-says-violence-against-humanitarians-must-not-be http://www.unocha.org/world-humanitarian-day http://www.un.org/en/observances/humanitarian-day http://www.unocha.org/latest/news-and-stories   http://www.icrc.org/en/statement/world-humanitarian-day-remarks-yasmine-praz-director-operations-icrc http://www.icrc.org/en/article/world-humanitarian-day-health-care-not-privilege-it-fundamental-right http://www.who.int/news/item/04-05-2026-joint-call-by-the-president-of-the-icrc--the-director-general-of-who-and-the-international-president-of-msf http://www.msf.org/latest-portal http://www.insecurityinsight.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/Executive-Summary-Still-Under-Attack-A-decade-of-monitoring-attacks-on-health-care-after-United-Nations-Security-Council-Resolution-2286.pdf http://www.inew.org/world-humanitarian-day-new-data-shows-impact-of-explosive-weapons-on-humanitarian-work/ http://www.icrc.org/en/article/icrcs-position-use-explosive-weapons-populated-areas http://explosiveweaponsmonitor.org/reports/9/explosive-weapons-monitor-2025/   http://www.ohchr.org/en/stories/2026/08/unwavering-duty-protect-humanitarian-workers-and-civilians-world-humanitarian-day http://www.aidworkersecurity.org/ http://humanitarianoutcomes.org/AWSR_2026 http://ngosafety.org/latest/aid-under-arrest/ http://ngosafety.org/ http://protecthumanitarians.org/en/out-now-protect-humanitarians-and-legal-action-worldwides-report-on-justice-and-accountability-for-attacks-against-humanitarian-personnel/ http://reliefweb.int/report/world/children-and-armed-conflict-report-secretary-general-a80723-s2026357-enarruzh http://reliefweb.int/report/world/protection-civilians-armed-conflict-report-secretary-general-s2026390 http://docs.un.org/en/S/2026/390 http://www.unwomen.org/en/news-stories/press-release/2026/07/at-least-one-million-women-and-girls-lose-access-to-critical-support   http://interagencystandingcommittee.org/inter-agency-standing-committee/statement-principals-iasc-protecting-civilians-armed-conflict-responsibility-member-states-and-un http://www.unocha.org/news/over-1000-aid-workers-killed-often-hands-member-states-un-relief-chief-demands-action http://civiliansinconflict.org/press-releases/joint-civil-society-statement-ahead-of-the-2026-open-debate-on-the-protection-of-civilians-in-armed-conflict/ Visit the related web page
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