The UN says 907 aid workers were killed, injured or kidnapped in 2025.
Gaza was the deadliest place for humanitarian workers, with 186 killed.
Armed drones and attacks on aid convoys increased risks for humanitarian workers.
A record 907 aid workers were killed, injured or kidnapped in 2025, as humanitarian personnel faced a growing number of violent attacks, including those involving armed drones, the United Nations humanitarian office has said.
According to the Aid Worker Security Database, a platform that compiles major incidents affecting humanitarian workers, 907 aid workers were killed, injured or kidnapped in 2025. Of those, 350 were killed, down slightly from a record 387 in 2024. Gaza remained the deadliest place for humanitarian workers for the third consecutive year, with 186 humanitarians killed there in 2025, followed by Sudan.
According to Al Jazeera, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described the level of violence as “appalling” and urged states to respect the rules of war and hold perpetrators accountable.
“Serving others has become more dangerous than ever,” he said in a statement on Wednesday.
UN aid chief Tom Fletcher said the proliferation of cheap and adaptable armed drones in conflicts had increased the risks faced by humanitarian workers. In March, drone attacks hit Goma in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, killing at least three people, including a French aid worker. Aid convoys in Sudan and Ukraine have also been repeatedly hit, Al Jazeera reported.
Gaza was by far the most deadly place for aid workers in 2025, with 186 humanitarians killed there, according to the database. Ramiz Alakbarov, the humanitarian coordinator of the UN Palestinian refugee agency, said in a post on X that “humanitarian workers are not a target and humanitarian assistance must be fully facilitated.”
UNRWA’s former chief Philippe Lazzarini said earlier this year that he was seeking a high-level panel to investigate staff deaths.
The attacks on humanitarian workers have also taken place as funding for their work is increasingly being cut. In a statement, the European Commission said it would continue its donor obligations, adding “every aid worker killed is not only a personal tragedy; it is also a failure by the international community to uphold its most basic commitments.”
Bushra Khalidi, global humanitarian policy lead at Oxfam, called for greater protections for aid workers, saying: “We’re witnessing an assault on humanitarian action itself.”
