Mizzima/AFP-Oct 29
Local staff and volunteers – the backbone of aid agencies providing help in the world’s worst conflicts – are dying in ever greater numbers. Yet few seem to notice, the head of the Red Cross told AFP in an interview on Monday.
“Almost 95 percent of the humanitarians who are killed are actually the local staff and local volunteers”, Jagan Chapagain, the Secretary-General of the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. But while the killing of an international staff member of large humanitarian organizations can spark global outrage, there is often little attention paid when a local aid worker suffers the same fate. He decried a clear “erosion” in the respect for international humanitarian law and the principles requiring humanitarians to be protected. Growing disregard for international law in conflict was significantly “increasing the situation of extreme exposures (and) risk for our humanitarian workers, (with) volunteers getting shot, ambulances getting attacked”.
Respect for the Red Cross Red Crescent emblem, and for people wearing the network’s signatory red vest has “eroded significantly”, he warned. Asked if he believed humanitarians were being deliberately targeted, he said: “Definitely. Unfortunately, the numbers speak for themselves.” His IFRC will along with the International Committee of the Red Cross kick off their quadrennial international conference in Geneva on Monday, which is due to focus heavily on the need to boost compliance with international humanitarian law. It will include participants from the 191 national Red Cross and Red Crescent societies, whose staff and volunteers are frequently the ones on the frontlines in conflicts and in the communities under attack. Read more at: https://eng.mizzima.com/2024/10/29/15629#google_vignette
