It’s time we honoured aid workers who sacrifice everything for others

LAST year, 122 humanitarian aid workers were killed and a further 138 were kidnapped or seriously injured in violent attacks. This toll is the highest on record.

The overall number of attacks against aid workers has risen steeply over the past three years and over 750 have lost their lives since 1997.

The fatality rate of humanitarian aid workers is greater than that of UN peacekeeping troops.

Six years ago, Mary Robinson’s successor at the UN High Commission for Human Rights, Sergio Vieira de Mello, was killed by a bomb in Baghdad along with 21 others. In his memory, today’s date – August 19 – has been chosen as the first annual World Humanitarian Day.

Humanitarian aid workers provide life-saving help to millions, committed to assisting those most in need, regardless of race, religion or nationality. In doing so, they often work in extremely difficult physical and political environments. In Trócaire, our partners – small, local organisations that we work with to deliver help to where it’s needed – are at the coalface, often placing their own lives at risk, in countries where governments often don’t even allow access to the most vulnerable people.

For example, in Zimbabwe, peace advocate and human rights monitor and Trócaire partner Jestina Mukoko is believed to have been abducted by the Zimbabwean government to silence her organisation’s work of monitoring and reporting human rights abuses by that government. Her health has suffered as a result of her experiences.

In Pakistan, Trócaire is responding to the world’s largest displacement crisis, where fighting between Government and Taliban forces has driven over two million people from their homes.

Trócaire is proud to work with some of the most fearless and committed humanitarians in the world. They are an inspiration to all of us, and on the first World Humanitarian Day it is important that we recognise the countless aid workers who risk everything in the pursuit of a better life for others.

Maurice McQuillan

Humanitarian Programme Manager Trócaire