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More than 1,000 humanitarian workers have been killed across the globe in the past three years, nearly triple the death count in the previous three years, the UN said on Wednesday. "This is not an accidental escalation it is the collapse of protection," UN humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher told the UN Security Council. Of the more than 1,010 humanitarian workers killed from 2023 to 2025, he said, over 560 were in Gaza and the West Bank, 130 in Sudan, 60 in South Sudan, 25 in Ukraine and 25 in Congo. That compares with 377 killed from 2020 to 2022. The surge in deaths occurred during the war between Israel and Hamas, which began in October 2023. A ceasefire has been in effect since October 2025, although shootings and airstrikes have persisted. Last year alone, Fletcher said, at least 326 aid workers were recorded as killed in 21 countries. In 2024, a record 383 were killed in global hotspots while distributing food, water, shelter and medicine. "They died in clearly marked convoys
Several UN agencies that provide aid to children, refugees and other vulnerable people around the world are slashing jobs or cutting costs in other ways, with officials pointing to funding reductions mainly from the United States and warning that vital relief programs will be severely affected as a result. The UN World Food Program is expected to cut up to 30 per cent of its staff. The head of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees said it would downsize its headquarters and regional offices to reduce costs by 30 per cent and cut senior-level positions by 50 per cent. That's according to internal memos obtained by The AP and verified by two UN officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the internal personnel decisions. Other agencies like UNICEF, the UN children's agency, and OCHA, the UN humanitarian agency, have also announced or plan to make cuts. One WFP official called the cuts the most massive seen by the agency in the past 25 years, and that as a result, operatio
Seventeen states were elected Friday into the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), the coordinating body for the economic and social work of UN agencies and funds, for a three-year term.The states were elected by secret ballot with a two-thirds majority of the member states present and voting in the UN General Assembly.Elected were Botswana, Cape Verde, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea from African states; China, Laos, Qatar, South Korea from Asia-Pacific states; Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica from Latin America and Caribbean states; Denmark, Greece, New Zealand, Sweden from Western European and other states; Slovakia and Slovenia from Eastern European states.They were elected for a three-year term beginning Jan. 1, 2023.Of the 17 states, Botswana, China, Colombia, Denmark, Greece, New Zealand and South Korea were re-elected.In a by-election for rotation within the Western European and other states group, Liechtenstein was elected for a one-year term beginning Jan. 1, 2023. It will ...