(MENAFN- Kuwait News Agency (KUNA)) The European Union Tuesday paid tribute to humanitarian aid workers around the globe and expressed concern that attacks on them more frequent than ever.
"World Humanitarian Day is an occasion to pay tribute to the people who risk their lives every day to help the victims of war and disasters around the world, and an opportunity to highlight the humanitarian challenges we are facing," said EU Commissioner for International Cooperation and Humanitarian Aid, Kristalina Georgeiva, in a statement.
Every year on 19 August, World Humanitarian Day is observed in memory of the victims of the attack on the United Nations' headquarters in Baghdad (Iraq) in 2003 which caused the death of 22 people including the UN Special Representative in Iraq Sergio Vieira de Mello. "These challenges are all too evident here in Iraq. Hundreds of thousands of people are in desperate need of help. But reaching them is being made all the more difficult by an escalating conflict. It's no longer business as usual for humanitarian workers - not here nor anywhere else, " said Georgeiva who is visiting Iraq currently. "In the Middle East we are witnessing horrific levels of violence in which there is no end in sight for the suffering of innocent civilians. Across Africa, from Mali in the West to Somalia in the East, stretching across Northern Nigeria, the Central African Republic and South Sudan, there are millions of civilians squeezed inside a belt of conflict fuelled in part by ethnic and religious hatred. Bringing relief and assistance to vulnerable children, women and the elderly is becoming more and more difficult," she said.
Georgeiva said that the number of attacks against humanitarian workers has quadrupled since 2003. Last year an average of twelve humanitarian workers were killed and more than ten were kidnapped every month. Every week three humanitarians were attacked and wounded. Meanwhile, in a separate statement the European Commission said it delivered humanitarian aid to 124 million people in more than 90 countries in 2013.
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