Signal Alert reports

State forces in Myanmar have increased the use of detentions and arrests to control and intimidate aid workers. The new detention category in the AWSD records 242 aid worker arrests and detentions over the past five years, though the real figures are likely much higher. Shrinking civil society and the persecution of journalists and human rights monitors since the 2021 coup have made documenting abuses extremely difficult, resulting in artificially low incident numbers.

ကယ်ဆယ်ရေးလုပ်သားများကို ထိန်းသိမ်းရန်နှင့် ခြိမ်းခြောက်ရန်အတွက် မြန်မာနိုင်ငံရှိ အစိုးရတပ်ဖွဲ့များက အရေးယူထိန်းသိမ်းမှုနှင့် ဖမ်းချုပ်မှုများကို တိုးမြှင့်အသုံးပြုလာခဲ့သည်။ AWSD ရှိ အရေးယူထိန်းသိမ်းမှု အမျိုးအစားသစ်တွင် လွန်ခဲ့သည့် ငါးနှစ်အတွင်း ဖမ်းဆီးထိန်းသိမ်းခံရသည့် ကယ်ဆယ်ရေးလုပ်သား ၂၄၂ ဦးကို မှတ်တမ်းတင်ထားသော်လည်း အမှန်တကယ် ကိန်းဂဏန်းများမှာ ပိုမိုများပြားဖွယ်ရှိသည်။ ၂၀၂၁ ခုနှစ် အာဏာသိမ်းမှုနောက်ပိုင်းတွင် အရပ်ဘက်လူ့အဖွဲ့အစည်း လျော့နည်းလာသည့်အပြင် သတင်းသမားများနှင့် လူ့အခွင့်အရေးစောင့်ကြည့်သူများအား ညှဉ်းပန်းနှိပ်စက်ခြင်းကြောင့် မတရားချိုးဖောက်မှုများကို မှတ်တမ်းပြုစုရာတွင် အလွန်ခက်ခဲခဲ့ပြီး ဖြစ်ရပ်အရေအတွက်နည်းပါးသယောင် ဖြစ်ပေါ်လျက်ရှိသည်။ 

Since the beginning of the year, 25 aid workers have been killed in Sudan, putting 2024 on track to be the deadliest year for aid workers in Sudan ever recorded. Kidnappings/abductions have also already surpassed the number recorded in 2023. Almost all the reported abductions have been perpetrated by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in Khartoum and Darfur.

At the same time, there is evidence that aid workers are being deliberately targeted as well as being affected by collateral violence. For example, out of attacks where the location is recorded, the data shows a significant increase in attacks on project sites and offices.

Since October 7, 2023, the AWSD has recorded 39 aid worker fatalities, 18 wounded, and 1 kidnapping in the Gaza Strip and Israel, affecting personnel of the UN, Palestinian Red Crescent, NNGOs and INGO supported hospitals. The October 7 attack on Israel by Hamas and Israel’s subsequent bombing campaign of Gaza have caused the death of 39 aid workers among thousands of other civilians. In all, 57 aid worker victims were reported as of October 23 including 4 killed by gunfire, 1 kidnapped, 35 killed in airstrikes, and an additional 18 injured in those strikes.

Abductions of aid workers in Mali has increased significantly over the last 6 years. Abduction incidents have been reported in 6 out of 10 regions in Mali during the period, with 57% of incidents occurring in the region of Mopti, an epicenter of civil violence.

Le nombre d’enlèvements de travailleurs humanitaires au Mali a augmenté significativement ces 6 dernières années. Des incidents d’enlèvement ont été signalés dans 6 des 10 régions du Mali au cours de cette période. 57 % des incidents ont eu lieu dans la région de Mopti, un épicentre de la violence civile.

Violent attacks on aid workers in the Al Hol refugee camp have increased significantly since 2020, accounting for 72% of all attacks in camp settings globally so far this year (AWSD). Life-saving humanitarian services have been dramatically curtailed as a result.

ازدادت الهجمات العنيفة على عاملي الإغاثة في مخيم الهول للاجئين بشكل ملحوظ منذ عام 2020، وتمثل 72% من جميع الهجمات في المخيمات على مستوى العالم حتى الآن هذا العام (وفقاً لقاعدة بيانات أمن عاملي الإغاثة (AWSD)). وانخفضت نتيجة لذلك الخدمات الإنسانية المنقذة للحياة بشكل كبير.

An increase in violence against aid workers in 2021 reflects the continuing instability following the February coup, with the direct targeting of aid workers and violent detentions significantly altering the risk environment for aid operations.