GENEVA: A staggering 281 aid workers have been killed worldwide so far this year, making 2024 the deadliest year for humanitarians, the UN humanitarian chief said on Friday (Nov 22).

“Aid workers are being killed at an unprecedented rate, their courage and humanity met with bullets and bombs,” said Tom Fletcher, the new United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator.

With more than a month to go until the end of 2024, “a grim tipping point has been reached,” he said, after 280 humanitarians were killed in 33 countries in all of 2023.

“This violence is unacceptable and devastating to relief operations,” Fletcher said.

Israel’s devastating war in Gaza has increased the numbers, his office said, with 333 aid workers killed there – most from the UN agency supporting Palestinian refugees, UNRWA – since the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023which started the war.

“States and parties to conflict must protect humanitarian personnel, respect international law, prosecute those responsible and end this era of impunity,” Fletcher said.

Aid workers have been subjected to abduction, injury, harassment and arbitrary detention in a number of countries, his office said, including Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan and Ukraine.