Providing aid in insecure environments: 2009 Update - Trends in violence against aid workers and the operational response

 In 2008, 260 humanitarian aid workers were
killed, kidnapped or seriously injured in violent
attacks. This toll is the highest of the 12 years
that our study has tracked these incidents. The
absolute number of attacks against aid workers
has risen steeply over the past three years, with
an annual average almost three times higher
than the previous nine years. Relative rates of
attacks per numbers of aid workers in the field
have also increased — by 61%. The 2008 fatality
rate for international aid workers exceeds that
of UN peacekeeping troops.
This HPG Policy Brief updates the findings from
the 2006 report Providing Aid in Insecure
Environments: Trends in Policy and Operations.
Its analysis follows on from that report, providing
the global incident data for the last three
years. It identifies new trends and highlights
issues in the three most violent contexts for aid
workers at present: Sudan (Darfur), Afghanistan,
and Somalia.