World Humanitarian Day: UN chief António Guterres urges governments to protect aid workers

The United Nations on Tuesday called on governments to protect and support aid workers in honour of the World Humanitarian Day.

The UN Secretary-General António Guterres raised the alarm in a video message, after a record number of at least 383 humanitarian workers were killed in 2024, nearly half of them in Gaza.

The UN chief described aid workers as "the last lifeline for over 300 million people caught in conflict or disaster."

According to UN data, the number of aid workers killed rose by 31% between 2023 and 2024, driven by the war in Gaza. State actors are the most common perpetrators.

"International law is clear: humanitarians must be respected and protected. They can never be targeted. This rule is non-negotiable and is binding on all parties to conflict, always and everywhere", said Guterres.

"Yet red lines are crossed with impunity", he added.

The highest numbers of major attacks last year were in the Palestinian territories with 194, followed by Sudan with 64, South Sudan with 47, Nigeria with 31 and the Democratic Republic of Congo with 27, taccording to the Aid Worker Security Database.

The UN said this worrying trend shows no signs of slowing down this year. As of August 2025, 265 aid workers have already been killed.

The UN Security Council adopted a resolution in May 2024 to reaffirm "the obligation on parties to conflict and Member States to protect humanitarian personnel" and to call for independent investigations into violations.

"The rules and tools exist. What is missing is political will – and moral courage", said Guterres.

The humanitarian field also suffers from a lack of funding. The United States used to be the world’s largest aid donor, until the Trump administration cut 83% of the programmes led by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) in March. The agency officially shut down in July.

Several European countries have also slashed aid budgets.

The UN’s relief chief Tom Fletcher warned in March that the global humanitarian system had reached "a breaking point", with many NGOs and UN agencies across the world being forced to scale back operations.

“The pace and scale of the funding cuts are a seismic shock to the sector … many will die because aid is drying up. Right now, programmes are shutting down, staff are being laid off, and we are being forced to choose which lives to prioritise", Fletcher said at the time.

World Humanitarian Day is celebrated each year on 19 August. It was introduced in 2008, five years after a bomb attack on a hotel of the Iraqi capital Baghdad killed 22 humanitarian aid workers.

"On this World Humanitarian Day, let's honour the fallen with action", said António Guterres. "Together, let us say in one voice: An attack on humanitarians is an attack on humanity"