More humanitarian workers were killed in warzones in 2023 than in any previous year, the United Nations' Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said on Monday.

A total of 280 aid workers died last year, a figure the OCHA called "outrageously high" and which marks the "deadliest year on record for the global humanitarian community."

In a statement accompanying the figures, published on World Humanitarian Day, interim OCHA chief Joyce Msuya said the deaths were set against a backdrop of impunity.

"The normalization of violence against aid workers and the lack of accountability are unacceptable, unconscionable, and enormously harmful for aid operations everywhere."

The 280 fatalities were recorded across 33 different countries and represented a 137% increase on 2022, when 118 humanitarian workers were killed.

Gaza, South Sudan and Sudan deadliest regions

Over half (163) were registered in the Gaza Strip in the three months after the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel on October 7, mainly as a result of Israeli air strikes on the enclave. Seven aid worker deaths were reported in Israel over the course of the year.

South Sudan, torn apart by civil strife, and Sudan, engulfed in a war between two rival generals since April 2023, are the next deadliest conflicts for aid workers, according to the figures, with 34 and 25 fatalities respectively, described by the OCHA as "extreme levels of violence."

Ukraine also made the top ten with six deaths during the first full calendar year of the battle against the ongoing Russian invasion, the same amount as in Ethiopia's war-torn Amhara region. Another seven were recorded in Syria.

Five fatalities were reported in Somalia, and four in both Myanmar and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

2024 could be 'even deadlier'

In all the conflicts, most of the deaths are among local staff, the report said, before warning that 2024 could be on track to be even worse.

As of August 9 this year, 176 aid workers have been killed worldwide, according to the Aid Worker Security Database, which has been tracking such figures since 1997.

In April, seven World Central Kitchen employees were killed in an Israeli airstrike on two marked armored cars leaving a warehouse in Deir al-Balah in the Gaza Strip.

"We will continue to stay and deliver in humanitarian crises around the world, but the situation requires us to take a united stand to call for the protection of our staff, volunteers and the civilians we serve," concluded the report.

"[But] 2024 may be on track to be even deadlier."

mf/rc (dpa/AFP)