UN Calls For End To Attacks On Humanitarian Space

Umer Jamshaid Published August 19, 2025 | 03:46 PM

GENEVA, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News / WAM - 19th Aug, 2025) United Nations resident coordinators for humanitarian affairs in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Syria, Yemen and Lebanon have called for an end to attacks on humanitarian space and relief operations in the middle East.

In a statement issued today in Geneva to mark World Humanitarian Day, the coordinators, including Dr. Ramiz Alakbarov, UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinators in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), Syria, Yemen and Lebanon, highlighted that since August 2024, 446 humanitarian workers have been killed, injured, kidnapped or detained in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen. This brings the total number of victims in those four countries since August 2023 to at least 841, including those killed, wounded or abducted.

The signatories of the statement underlined that attacks on humanitarian space have gone beyond traditional patterns, now threatening the very foundations of the global system, the principles of international humanitarian law and collective civilisation. This, they noted, has included attempts to dismantle UN agencies, impose sanctions on them and cut off humanitarian funding.

UN officials warned that the failure of justice to address such grave violations encourages other parties to continue perpetrating them in the absence of deterrence or accountability. They stressed that there can be no exceptions in the rules of war or international humanitarian law, and that all parties must uphold their obligations.