Aid worker attacks: Latest statistics.

 

A continuing surge in violence 

Attacks against aid workers continued to climb steeply in 2024 (and in the first half of 2025), along with the number of victims and deaths. The AWSD recorded an all-time high of 568 major violent incidents against aid workers (killings, kidnappings, and woundings) in 2024 – a 36% increase over 2023. It was the second consecutive year to set records for both the number of victims and fatalities, which rose by 37% and 31% respectively. Major violent incidents occurred in 40 countries in 2024, an increase from 33 in 2023. When arrests and detentions by state authorities are included, the number of countries rises to 42, underscoring both the geographic spread of insecurity and the growing role of state actors in obstructing humanitarian operations. 

The violence showed no signs of letting up in the first half of 2025. As at 30 June, the provisional data suggests the numbers are on track to break records again, barring dramatic shifts in the course of conflicts or conduct of state actors. The roughly 230 aid workers killed in the first 6 months of 2025 is already a higher toll than seen in all recorded years prior to 2023. Seven contexts (Central African Republic (CAR), DRC, Haiti, Iran, Mali, South Sudan, and Yemen) have experienced more fatalities so far this year than recorded in 2024. 

 The most insecure contexts for humanitarian action 

Gaza remains the deadliest operational context for both the recipients and providers of aid. In all, 181 aid workers were killed in Gaza in 2024, bringing the total aid worker death toll since the war began to 357 by the end of 2024, and to over 500 by the end of June 2025. The number of victims from aerial bombardment and shelling remained consistent over the first 14 months of the conflict, but the number of gunfire victims increased four times between the end of 2023 and the end of 2024. Expansion of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict caused 20 fatalities in Lebanon from aerial bombardment, artillery, and crossfire as the conflict escalated throughout the region last year. The Sudan civil war continued in 2024, perpetuating the world’s largest humanitarian crisis, with an estimated 30 million people affected. Sudan saw the second highest number of aid worker victims, 60 of whom were killed – a higher number than any other context, apart from Gaza, in any year ever recorded. Sudan saw 89 victims of violence in 2024, but incidents are likely to be underreported and, due to the intensity of the conflict and reliance on local actors, the true injury and kidnapping totals are likely much higher. Targeting of local volunteers in emergency response rooms and community kitchens has persisted, with the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) viewing these aid workers as political opponents and subjecting them to harassment and detention. In areas under Rapid Support Forces (RSF) control, the absence of law and order has led to arbitrary violence by armed individuals, according to a Sudanese NGO, creating severe risks for humanitarians travelling to unfamiliar locations, where controlling forces often presume hostile intent. Since the first full year of its existence in 2012, South Sudan has consistently ranked among the top 5 most dangerous places for aid workers, with 870 victims over the last 13 years – the highest total of any context recorded. Despite a drop in the number of victims between 2023 and 2024, persistent armed robberies and ambushes on aid convoys kept South Sudan as the third highest victim context in 2024, with a decrease in the number of aid worker deaths but a rise in kidnappings and organised crime.

Nigeeria saw a significant increase in all victim types (killed, injured, kidnapped) from 2023 to 2024, with fatalities up to 12 from just 2 the previous year. Ongoing insurgency and criminal activity made road ambushes the most common attack location, with small arms fire and assaults both rising as types of violence. More kidnappings and violent robberies occurred at personal residences across several regions than in previous years, highlighting the increasing risks of targeted attacks. In Ethiopia, aid worker attacks during road travel increased, mostly in the Amhara region, resulting in increased kidnappings and casualties from small arms fire. Most ambushes occurred on marked humanitarian vehicles and convoys, as armed actor targeting of transportation routes expanded to more areas of the country than in previous years. In DRC, the number of individual violent attacks tripled in North Kivu in 2024 and remained consistently high in South Kivu and Ituri, with targeted shooting and assaults increasing at private residences and public spaces. The March 23 Movement (M23) was responsible for most of the security incidents affecting aid workers in 2024, but state authorities also complicated aid operations with the detention of at least 6 aid workers. Somalia experienced the most individual incidents in the last 10 years in 2024, with 9 killed, 14 wounded, and 7 kidnapped. Small arms fire, roadside IEDs, and kidnappings were the most common means, with the number of attacks attributed to Al-Shabaab up 18% from 2023. Following two years of reduction in the number of aid worker victims in Syria, numbers increased again in 2024 as the fall of the Assad regime and ongoing hostilities in contested areas led to more intense conflict affecting humanitarian operations in the north and central parts of the country. 5 The number of aerial attacks on populated areas and civilian infrastructure in Ukraine increased in 2024 injuring and killing more aid workers than in 2023. Russian aerial attacks on aid distribution sites increased dramatically, demonstrating the repeated and rising violations of international humanitarian law in the conflict.

 Trends in tactics

 Airstrikes remained the main cause of aid worker fatalities, killing 163 aid workers, mostly in Gaza, Lebanon, and Ukraine. However, small arms fire also claimed a great many lives (103), and was the most common means of violence seen in DRC, South Sudan, and Sudan. The number of aid worker kidnappings increased again in 2024, having declined in the previous year. The AWSD records 125 aid workers kidnapped across 16 countries. The countries of the Sahel and Lake Chad Basin dominate this list (Mali, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Cameroon), reflecting familiar patterns of non-state armed groups using kidnapping for leverage or extortion. Sudan, South Sudan, and Ethiopia also saw increased kidnapping incidents in contested or transitional areas. 

New AWSD category: Arrests and detentions 

The rising number of aid worker arrests and detentions by state and local authorities prompted the AWSD to begin tracking these incidents as a distinct category in 2025. Often used as a tool of harassment and control, such detentions can involve physical violence and can be as psychologically damaging as criminal kidnappings. Several humanitarian organisations noted that detentions now affect greater numbers of their staff – and consume more of their security risk management efforts – than kidnappings have in recent years. For example, the consolidation of power by the de facto Houthi authorities in Yemen prompted an unprecedented number of humanitarian staff detentions across the country in 2024. In the majority of detentions recorded by the AWSD last year, staff were taken from organisation offices or project sites, evidencing an alarming concerted effort by state authorities to specifically target and harass aid workers.  

Increasing ‘localisation’ of insecurity 

Nearly all (97%) of the aid workers killed in 2024 were nationals of the crisis-affected country where they worked – a pattern consistent with the fact that national staff have always made up the vast majority of humanitarian personnel, and therefore of victims. What is new, however, is the breakdown by employer. Over the past three years, alongside the steep rise in violence, there has been a marked shift in affiliation profile: aid workers most affected are now those employed by national NGOs, while the share of victims from international organisations, in particular international NGOs, has dropped significantly. The main exception was Gaza, where the UN agency UNRWA, as the de facto primary responder, employed the largest proportion of humanitarian staff. The transfer of risk and casualty burden from international to local aid organisations was seen most starkly in contexts where international presence was severely limited due to one or more of the following conditions:

• host state hostility and bureaucratic obstacles to aid (Ethiopia, Burkina Faso) 

• deteriorating public sentiment and decreasing acceptance of international aid organisations (Cameroon, Mali)

 • large areas where government authorities have barred humanitarian organisations from working or where heavy fighting and extreme insecurity keeps them at a distance (Myanmar, Sudan, Ukraine) 

• lack of funding and chronic insecurity resulting in the complete withdrawal or remote operations of international organisations (Syria, Somalia, CAR). 

This reduced international humanitarian presence has also made the humanitarian actors who remain even more vulnerable to targeted misinformation and disinformation campaigns, which can inflame community mistrust and heighten security risks. New social media research in the Sahel exposes growing negative sentiments that are “accusatory”and “anti-aid” since the closure of USAID. The hostility towards the aid sector visible online translates into reality for the many international organisations that have recently had their operations suspended in Burkina Faso, Niger, and elsewhere in the Sahel. The widespread suspension of international actors leaves local organisations as the only resource for vulnerable communities, which previous researchshows often do not have the resources for the security functions they need.

Localisation of humanitarian action – and supporting local capacities for independent humanitarian response – has long been the stated goal of the international aid sector. However, rising insecurity and falling funding have conspired to create a localisation-by-default, materially shifting risk exposure toward national organisations, which have traditionally received the fewest resources to keep their staff safe. A security risk manager from an international NGO said his organisation was considering a range of options in response to the defunding crisis, which included spinning off country offices and/or a large portion of their programmes to local partners. They made clear, however, that this carried additional risk for the local organisations. “If we go the full localisation route, we will see a massive increase in incidents because they still have fewer resources – so if we don’t find a way of supporting them, we will see more deaths.”