MORE aid workers, healthcare staffers, delivery personnel and other humanitarians have been killed in 2024 than in any other single year, the United Nations reported today.

Bloodshed in the Middle East has been the single biggest cause of the 281 deaths among humanitarians globally this year, according to the UN office for the co-ordination of humanitarian affairs (OCHA).

“Before the year is even over, 2024 has become the deadliest on record for humanitarian personnel worldwide,” OCHA spokesman Jens Laerke said. He told reporters in Geneva that the figure surpassed the previous record of 280 deaths for the whole of last year.

He said humanitarians “are working courageously and selflessly in places like Gaza, Sudan, Lebanon, Ukraine and so on. They show the best humanity has to offer, and they are getting killed in return — in record numbers.

“These numbers will send shock waves around the humanitarian community, especially on the front lines of the response.”

The UN said that the figures come from the Aid Worker Security Database, a United States-funded project run by a Britain-based group called Humanitarian Outcomes.

A total of 268 of the humanitarians killed, including from non-UN organisations like the Red Cross and Red Crescent, were national staff, while 13 were international staff.

About 230 aid workers have been killed in occupied Palestinian areas, the database showed. It did not identify whether that was Gaza or the West Bank.

Mr Laerke said the threats to aid workers “extend beyond Gaza, with high levels of violence, kidnappings, injuries, harassment and arbitrary detention” reported in Afghanistan, DR Congo, South Sudan, Sudan, Ukraine, Yemen and elsewhere.

OCHA said that a total of 333 humanitarians have been killed since the latest conflict between Israel and Palestinian fighters erupted when Hamas and its allies staged a surprise attack on October 7 2023.