Breaking News: 2008 Deadliest Year For Aid Workers

by Michael Bear · 2009-04-06 16:05:00 UTC
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The Center for International Cooperation and the Overseas Development Institute will soon issue a report showing that 2008 was the deadliest single year for aid workers, with 122 aid workers killed.

[Updated Tuesday - the report is available here.]

According to an article on Reuters AlertNet:

"Soaring violence in Somalia and Afghanistan helped make 2008 the most dangerous year on record for aid workers, with 122 killed while carrying out their work, a new report shows.

...

Altogether, 260 humanitarian workers were attacked in 155 serious incidents in 2008 - up from 32 incidents a decade ago, according to figures compiled by the Center on International Cooperation (CIC) in New York and the Overseas Development Institute in London.

'We were surprised,' said CIC fellow Abby Stoddard who co-wrote the report. 'We did not expect the jump in the past three years that we saw. There seems to be an alarming trend.

'It's a very dangerous profession indeed and I don't think that's understood as much as maybe it should be. The numbers are quite startling and certainly the fatality rate exceeds that of U.N. peacekeepers.'

Most of the violence is being driven by three countries - Somalia, where 45 aid workers were killed in 2008, up from 7 in 2007; Afghanistan with 33 deaths; and Sudan with 19."

The AlertNet article includes additional statistics - including the fact that politically motivated attacks increased from 29% of all incidents in 2003 to almost half of all incidents in 2008.

To read the rest of the AlertNet article, see here.

[Body of an aid worker killed in Afghanistan - Photo from AP / NY Times]

Michael Bear
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