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UN Says a Record Number of Aid Workers Were Killed in 2023 and This Year May Be Even Higher

FILE -A World Food Program (WFP) truck backs up to load food items from a recently landed UN helicopter, in Yida camp, South Sudan Sept. 14, 2012. (AP Photo/Mackenzie Knowles-Coursin)
FILE -A World Food Program (WFP) truck backs up to load food items from a recently landed UN helicopter, in Yida camp, South Sudan Sept. 14, 2012. (AP Photo/Mackenzie Knowles-Coursin)
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UN Says a Record Number of Aid Workers Were Killed in 2023 and This Year May Be Even Higher

FILE -A World Food Program (WFP) truck backs up to load food items from a recently landed UN helicopter, in Yida camp, South Sudan Sept. 14, 2012. (AP Photo/Mackenzie Knowles-Coursin)
FILE -A World Food Program (WFP) truck backs up to load food items from a recently landed UN helicopter, in Yida camp, South Sudan Sept. 14, 2012. (AP Photo/Mackenzie Knowles-Coursin)

A record number of aid workers were killed in conflicts around the world last year – more than half after the Israel-Hamas war started on Oct. 7 -- and this year may become even deadlier, the United Nations said Monday.
The 280 aid workers from 33 countries killed in 2023 was more than double the previous year’s figure of 118, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs known as OCHA said in a report on World Humanitarian Day.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres tweeted that honoring the humanitarians killed in the deadliest year on record is not enough, The Associated Press reported.
“In Sudan & many other places, aid workers are attacked, killed, injured & abducted. We demand an end to impunity so that perpetrators face justice,” the UN chief said.
OCHA said this year “may be on track for an even deadlier outcome,” with 172 aid workers killed as of Aug. 7, according to a provisional account from the Aid Worker Security Database.
More than 280 aid workers have been killed in the war in Gaza, now in its 11th month, mainly in airstrikes. The majority of them are Palestinians who worked for the UN agency helping Palestinian refugees known as UNRWA, according to OCHA. It said that “extreme levels of violence in Sudan and South Sudan ” also have contributed to the death toll both this year and last.
The UN’s acting humanitarian chief, Joyce Msuya, said in a statement that “the normalization of violence against aid workers and the lack of accountability are unacceptable, unconscionable and enormously harmful for aid operations everywhere.”
In a letter to the 193 UN member nations, 413 humanitarian organizations around the world said: “The brutal hostilities we are seeing in multiple conflicts around the world have exposed a terrible truth: We are living in an era of impunity.”
The aid organizations appealed to all countries, the wider international community and all parties to conflicts to protect civilians and aid workers and hold perpetrators to account.
World Humanitarian Day commemorates the Aug. 19, 2003, terrorist bombing of the UN offices at the Canal Hotel in Baghdad which killed 22 UN staff members including the top UN envoy to Iraq, Sergio Viera de Mello, a Brazilian diplomat.
At a ceremony at UN headquarters Monday before the tattered UN flag retrieved from the hotel that day, dozens of current UN staff members and relatives of some of the victims stood in silent tribute to their memory – as did many watching around the world.

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World

Iran Warns Will Not Give Up Enrichment Despite US War Threat

Traffic moves through a street in Tehran on February 7, 2026. (Photo by ATTA KENARE / AFP)
Traffic moves through a street in Tehran on February 7, 2026. (Photo by ATTA KENARE / AFP)
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Iran Warns Will Not Give Up Enrichment Despite US War Threat

Traffic moves through a street in Tehran on February 7, 2026. (Photo by ATTA KENARE / AFP)
Traffic moves through a street in Tehran on February 7, 2026. (Photo by ATTA KENARE / AFP)

Iran will never surrender the right to enrich uranium, even if war "is imposed on us,” its foreign minister said Sunday, defying pressure from Washington.

"Iran has paid a very heavy price for its peaceful nuclear program and for uranium enrichment," Abbas Araghchi told a forum in Tehran.

"Why do we insist so much on enrichment and refuse to give it up even if a war is imposed on us? Because no one has the right to dictate our behavior," he said, two days after he met US envoy Steve Witkoff in Oman.

The foreign minister also declared that his country was not intimidated by the US naval deployment in the Gulf.

"Their military deployment in the region does not scare us," Araghchi said.

World

Washington Post Publisher Will Lewis Stepping Down Days after Big Layoffs

A person walks outside The Washington Post headquarters in Washington, DC, USA, 04 February 2026. EPA/JIM LO SCALZO
A person walks outside The Washington Post headquarters in Washington, DC, USA, 04 February 2026. EPA/JIM LO SCALZO
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Washington Post Publisher Will Lewis Stepping Down Days after Big Layoffs

A person walks outside The Washington Post headquarters in Washington, DC, USA, 04 February 2026. EPA/JIM LO SCALZO
A person walks outside The Washington Post headquarters in Washington, DC, USA, 04 February 2026. EPA/JIM LO SCALZO

Washington Post publisher Will Lewis said Saturday that he’s stepping down, ending a troubled tenure three days after the newspaper said that it was laying off one-third of its staff.

Lewis announced his departure in a two-paragraph email to the newspaper's staff, saying that after two years of transformation, “now is the right time for me to step aside.” The Post's chief financial officer, Jeff D'Onofrio, was appointed temporary publisher, The Associated Press reported.

Neither Lewis nor the newspaper's billionaire owner Jeff Bezos participated in the meeting with staff members announcing the layoffs on Wednesday. While anticipated, the cutbacks were deeper than expected, resulting in the shutdown of the Post's renowned sports section, the elimination of its photography staff and sharp reductions in personnel responsible for coverage of metropolitan Washington and overseas.

They came on top of widespread talent defections in recent years at the newspaper, which lost tens of thousands of subscribers following Bezos' order late in the 2024 presidential campaign pulling back from a planned endorsement of Kamala Harris, and a subsequent reorienting of its opinion section in a more conservative direction.

Martin Baron, the Post’s first editor under Bezos, condemned his former boss this week for attempting to curry favor with President Donald Trump and called what has happened at the newspaper “a case study in near-instant, self-inflicted brand destruction.”

The British-born Lewis was a former top executive at The Wall Street Journal before taking over at The Post in January 2024. His tenure has been rocky from the start, marked by layoffs and a failed reorganization plan that led to the departure of former top editor Sally Buzbee.

His initial choice to take over for Buzbee, Robert Winnett, withdrew from the job after ethical questions were raised about both he and Lewis' actions while working in England. They include paying for information that produced major stories, actions that would be considered unethical in American journalism. The current executive editor, Matt Murray, took over shortly thereafter.

Lewis didn't endear himself to Washington Post journalists with blunt talk about their work, at one point saying in a staff meeting that they needed to make changes because not enough people were reading their work.

This week's layoffs have led to some calls for Bezos to either increase his investment in The Post or sell it to someone who will take a more active role. Lewis, in his note, praised Bezos: “The institution could not have had a better owner,” he said.

“During my tenure, difficult decisions have been taken in order to ensure the sustainable future of The Post so it can for many years ahead publish high-quality nonpartisan news to millions of customers each day,” Lewis said.

The Washington Post Guild, the union representing staff members, called Lewis' exit long overdue.

“His legacy will be the attempted destruction of a great American journalism institution,” the Guild said in a statement. “But it’s not too late to save The Post. Jeff Bezos must immediately rescind these layoffs or sell the paper to someone willing to invest in its future.”

Bezos did not mention Lewis in a statement saying D'Onofrio and his team are positioned to lead The Post into “an exciting and thriving next chapter.”

“The Post has an essential journalistic mission and an extraordinary opportunity,” Bezos said. “Each and every day our readers give us a roadmap to success. The data tells us what is valuable and where to focus.”

D'Onofrio, who joined the paper last June after jobs at the digital ad management company Raptive, Google, Zagat and Major League Baseball, said in a note to staff that "we are ending a hard week of change with more change.

“This is a challenging time across all media organizations, and The Post is unfortunately no exception,” he wrote. “I've had the privilege of helping chart the course of disrupters and cultural stalwarts alike. All faced economic headwinds in changing industry landscapes, and we rose to meet those moments. I have no doubt we will do just that, together.”

World

US Concerned About Expansion of Terrorism in Sahel, West Africa

Members of the Nigeria Armed Forces interact with residents following an attack in Woro, Kwara State, on February 5, 2026. (Photo by Light Oriye Tamunotonye / AFP)
Members of the Nigeria Armed Forces interact with residents following an attack in Woro, Kwara State, on February 5, 2026. (Photo by Light Oriye Tamunotonye / AFP)
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US Concerned About Expansion of Terrorism in Sahel, West Africa

Members of the Nigeria Armed Forces interact with residents following an attack in Woro, Kwara State, on February 5, 2026. (Photo by Light Oriye Tamunotonye / AFP)
Members of the Nigeria Armed Forces interact with residents following an attack in Woro, Kwara State, on February 5, 2026. (Photo by Light Oriye Tamunotonye / AFP)

The United States is concerned by the “expansion” of al-Qaeda affiliates in the Sahel and West Africa, including Jama'at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) and ISIS-Sahel’s territorial gains.

US Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz shared the concern in his remarks at this week’s UN Security Council Briefing on Terrorist Threats to International Peace and Security caused by terrorist acts.

Highlighting JNIM and ISIS-Sahel’s territorial gains and use in particular of kidnapping for ransom, Waltz said the threats are increasingly diffuse and complex as they involve foreign fighters converging in multiple conflict zones.

The diplomat cited the latest Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team report, which showed that terror cells continue to adapt and exploit instability across Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia.

Waltz said ISIS’ growing focus on Africa, and the resilience of its cells in Syria and Iraq, and the persistent threat from ISIS-K in Afghanistan, truly reinforces the need for sustained, coordinated counterterrorism efforts.

Washington is particularly concerned by terrorist groups’ exploitation of new technologies, such as commercial satellite communications, artificial intelligence, drones and cryptocurrencies, he said.

“All of these further complicates the threat landscape and it requires our vigilance, vigilance from Member States and particularly where I think there is room for all of us to improve – is our coordination with the private sector as we face this threat,” Waltz added.

The ambassador called for further disruption of terrorist financing networks, saying the recent successes in Somalia and in West Africa demonstrate that following the money and stopping the money to these various groups can have bold decisive effects.

He said the US commends UN Member States whose counterterrorism operations have constrained ISIS and al-Qaeda, especially in Iraq, Syria, and Somalia.

He also urged all states to strengthen cooperation, including intelligence sharing and joint operations, and to support the effective implementation and evolution of the 1267 sanctions regime.

“Member States should collaborate on screening and information sharing to prevent terrorist movement across borders, in support of UN Security Council Resolution 2396,” Waltz noted.

Last November, the United Kingdom, which currently chairs the UN Security Council, expressed similar concern about the proliferation of terrorist groups in the Sahel and West Africa.

The US has sent a small team of troops to Nigeria, the general in charge of the US command for Africa said on Tuesday, the first acknowledgment of US forces on the ground since Washington struck by air on Christmas Day.

General Dagvin RM Anderson, head of the US military's Africa Command AFRICOM, said the US team was sent after both countries agreed that more needed to be done to combat the terrorist threat in West Africa.

“That has led to increased collaboration between our nations to include a small US team that brings some unique capabilities from the United States,” he told journalists during a press briefing in Dakar on Tuesday.