Gaza remains the deadliest location for aid workers, accounting for more than half of their deaths worldwide last year, the UN said in report released on Wednesday to mark World Humanitarian Day.
More than 350 aid workers were killed worldwide in 2025, among more than 900 who were the victims of violence, according to the UN’s Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
In Gaza, 186 aid workers were killed, 68 per cent of them by aerial bombardment, making the enclave the deadliest location for the third year running, OCHA said. Sudan was the second deadliest place, with 71 killed, mostly from small arms fire.
The Democratic Republic of Congo comes next, with violence against humanitarian aid workers doubling in 2025 from the previous year to 97 people targeted. Other high-insecurity countries included Ukraine, Ethiopia, Syria, Haiti, Chad and Cameroon, where the most common forms of violence were kidnappings and aerial bombardment.
“More than 1,000 aid workers have been killed in just three years, and that is utterly unacceptable,” said Tom Fletcher, OCHA's Emergency Relief Co-ordinator.
Kidnappings by non-state actors and criminal groups almost doubled compared with 2024, reaching 235, and serious injuries also increased. The Aid Worker Security Database additionally recorded 280 detentions and arrests of aid workers by state actors in 2025.
Yemen, South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Myanmar and Palestine together accounted for 75 per cent of state detentions and arrests of aid workers, with Yemen alone recording a third of all aid workers detained in 2025.
Road travel remained the most dangerous setting for aid workers last year, accounting for 27 per cent of all violent incidents, while offices, compounds and project sites accounted for another 20 per cent, underscoring the failure of warring parties to respect humanitarian operations and infrastructure.
Mr Fletcher added that cheap armed drones have increased the risks for humanitarian workers.
“The technology may change, but the laws of war do not,” he said in a statement to mark World Humanitarian Day.
In March, drone strikes hit Goma in the eastern DRC, killing at least three people, including an aid worker, while aid convoys in Sudan and Ukraine have been repeatedly hit.
“Serving others has become more dangerous than ever,” UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said before ceremonies planned for World Humanitarian Day. Flags were at half-mast at the UN headquarters in New York and Geneva in honour of those killed.
World Humanitarian Day is observed every year on August 19, marking the anniversary of the 2003 bombing of the UN's headquarters in Baghdad. Twenty-two UN staff, including the Special Representative of the UN Secretary General for Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello, were killed.
