UNITED NATIONS (AP) — More than 1,000 humanitarian workers have been killed across the globe in the past three years, nearly triple the death count in the previous three years, the U.N. said Wednesday.
“This is not an accidental escalation — it is the collapse of protection,” U.N. humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher told the U.N. Security Council.
Of the more than 1,010 humanitarian workers killed from 2023 to 2025, he said, more than 560 were in Gaza and the West Bank, 130 in Sudan, 60 in South Sudan, 25 in Ukraine and 25 in Congo. That compares with 377 killed from 2020 to 2022.
The surge in deaths occurred during the war between Israel and Hamas, which began in October 2023. A ceasefire has been in effect since October 2025, although shootings and airstrikes have persisted.
Last year alone, Fletcher said, at least 326 aid workers were recorded as killed in 21 countries. In 2024, a record 383 were killed in global hotspots while distributing food, water, shelter and medicine.
