Tom Fletcher tells UN Security Council more than 1,000 humanitarians killed over three years, urges accountability

Tom Fletcher told the United Nations Security Council that at least 326 humanitarian workers were recorded killed in 2025 across 21 countries, bringing the three‑year total to more than 1,010 and nearly tripling the previous three‑year figure.

“Of those over 1,000 deaths, more than 560 were in Gaza and the West Bank. 130 in Sudan, 60 in South Sudan, 25 in Ukraine, and 25 in DRC,” Fletcher said, laying out regional counts and saying the trend represented “the collapse of protection.”

Fletcher said many victims were killed while distributing food, water, medicine and shelter, often in clearly marked convoys or on missions coordinated directly with authorities. “Too often, they were killed by member states of the United Nations,” he said, and asked how many perpetrators had been prosecuted, how many leaders had resigned and on how many investigations the Security Council had insisted.

He questioned whether international humanitarian law and the commitments in Security Council Resolution 2730 were still treated with moral urgency, and suggested that restrictions, harassment and delegitimization of aid workers were becoming widespread. “Our action is being restricted, penalized, delegitimized. We are told where not to go, whom not to help. We are harassed or arrested for doing our job,” Fletcher said.

Fletcher described operational consequences: clinics closing and food not arriving when humanitarians are harmed. He cited country examples discussed in his briefing: UN and dozens of NGO personnel arbitrarily detained by the Houthis in Yemen; women humanitarians prevented from working in Afghanistan and Yemen; restrictions on UN agencies and international NGOs in Gaza; Myanmar access constraints that cut off aid to more than 100,000 people in a single month; and drone attacks that have forced aid groups to pull back in Ukraine.

Linking the trend to funding shortfalls, Fletcher called the combination of rising attacks and collapsing resources “a symptom of a lawless, bellicose, selfish, and violent world,” and framed attacks on humanitarians as an attack on the UN Charter and international humanitarian law. He urged the Council to act with “much greater conviction, consistency, and courage” and to uphold protection, integrity and accountability commitments.

The Council chair thanked Fletcher for his briefing and gave the floor to Mr. Jild Michaud for the next agenda item.