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Aid workers honored on first annual UN day
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UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon attends a wreath-laying ceremony to commemorate the sixth anniversary of the Baghdad bombing, 19 Aug 2009
Aid workers, targets of rising violence that has killed nearly 800 of them in the past dozen years worldwide, were honored for the first time on Wednesday in a special day proclaimed by the United Nations.
World Humanitarian Day was marked on the sixth anniversary of the truck bombing of the then U.N. headquarters in Baghdad, which killed 22 people including special U.N. envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello of Brazil.
A foundation set up by his widow Annie and former colleagues is behind the move to pay tribute to those who provide life-saving food, clean water, vaccines and shelter to millions of civilians caught up in wars or disasters.
Since de Mello died, "aid workers are working in ever more dangerous conditions," Catherine Bragg, deputy head of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian affairs (OCHA), said in a ceremony at U.N. headquarters.
"The last two years have been successively the most deadly for aid workers on record," Bragg said, adding that violent attacks had claimed the lives of over 770 around the world since 1997.
A foundation set up by his widow Annie and former colleagues is behind the move to pay tribute to those who provide life-saving food, clean water, vaccines and shelter to millions of civilians caught up in wars or disasters.
Since de Mello died, "aid workers are working in ever more dangerous conditions," Catherine Bragg, deputy head of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian affairs (OCHA), said in a ceremony at U.N. headquarters.
"The last two years have been successively the most deadly for aid workers on record," Bragg said, adding that violent attacks had claimed the lives of over 770 around the world since 1997.
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