World Humanitarian Day is
observed in memory of the victims of the attack on the United Nations'
headquarters in Baghdad in 2003 which caused the deaths of 22 people,
including the UN Special Representative in Iraq Sergio Vieira de Mello.
Kristalina Georgieva, European
Commissioner for International Cooperation, Humanitarian Aid and Crisis
Response, is in Iraq, where the European Commission is providing vital
assistance to hundreds of thousands of civilians trapped by the
fighting. She has made the following statement:
"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.
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.
The rising number and the evolving
nature of conflicts is making our world ever more fragile. 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.
And these challenges are making it
more dangerous for humanitarian workers to do their jobs. The number of
attacks against them 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.
With the combined impact of climate
change, rapid population growth in places like the Sahel and a rising
tide of extremism we will inevitably see more conflict, more hunger and
more people forced to abandon their homes and livelihoods.
We live in a
world of enormous fragility and because of this we need to focus more
on the challenges we face: for the sake of the victims of war and
disasters and also for the sake of the brave men and women who put their
lives on the line to help them."
