A risky new world for aid workers
Recent deadly attacks in Afghanistan and elsewhere are signs of trouble.
Last week, the Taliban slaughtered three aid workers and their driver in Logar province in Afghanistan, just south of Kabul. The fact that the aid workers were there trying to help disabled Afghan children was, from the Taliban's perspective, irrelevant. In a statement issued soon after the attack, the Taliban said, "We don't value their aid projects, and we don't think they are working for the progress of the country."
This was no isolated event. Around the world, humanitarian workers are being targeted as never before. This, in turn, is forcing aid agencies to reevaluate how they deliver assistance and, in some instances, pull back, with devastating consequences for millions of people who rely on humanitarian aid to survive.
The effect of the latest attack is already being felt in Afghanistan. When I worked there in 2004 and 2005, Logar province was considered relatively safe. Now, it's quickly becoming a no-go zone. Aid agencies have restricted staff movements in the area where the four workers were killed, and some are considering suspending operations in the province entirely.
Providing assistance in places like Afghanistan has always been dangerous, yet this risk was traditionally mitigated by the fact that aid workers were rarely direct targets. Humanitarian staff worked closely with communities, building the acceptance and trust necessary to ensure their protection. Aid agencies based their security on the assumption that as long as they remained neutral, no one would see them as a threat.
In many conflicts, this assumption no longer holds true. Since January, 23 aid workers have been killed in Afghanistan, 20 in Somalia and 10 in Darfur. Over the last three years, aid workers also have been killed in the Central African Republic, Iraq, Lebanon, South Sudan and Sri Lanka.
Overall, attacks against aid workers almost doubled between 1997 and 2005. The vast majority of the victims were national staff working in their own countries.
Part of the reason for the increase has to do with the fragmented nature of many conflicts since the end of the Cold War. In places such as Afghanistan, the Darfur region of Sudan and Somalia, there are a bewildering array of warlords and armed groups, and community acceptance isn't much of a security guarantee if bandits control the surrounding roads.
