Skip to footer

Backing aid heroes in world conflicts

Today's wars are setting near records in refugees, need for aid money – and aid workers killed. Bringing peace requires more than arms or diplomacy. It needs more compassion toward the displaced.

|
Reuters
Syrian refugees walk at the Al Zaatari refugee camp in the Jordanian city of Mafraq, near the border with Syria, Dec.7.
  • By the Monitor's Editorial Board

If the world had a compassion meter, it would likely register the sacrifice among wealthier nations and aid workers for the help given to people displaced by war. This year, the meter for this frontline work would be setting records not seen since World War II.

On Tuesday, a group of government donors met in Geneva to pledge money for humanitarian aid in conflict zones such as Syria, South Sudan, and the Central African Republic. The amount needed for 2015 is estimated to be nearly a third higher than last year’s, or $16.4 billion. The reason? The United Nations and other groups face a rising number of people forced to flee their homes – more than 51 million – in conflicts where peace efforts are failing. 

“This is not business as usual in the humanitarian world,” said António Guterres, the UN high commissioner for refugees.

It is also not business as usual for the aid workers themselves in the world’s hot spots. Last year saw record violence against civilian aid operations, with 251 separate attacks and 155 killed, according to the group Humanitarian Outcomes. That is about double the norm of a decade ago. This year might set a new record.

As troops from the United States and its allies have withdrawn from Iraq and Afghanistan, the world must now focus on the higher casualty figures for people who work in the line of duty to bring peace and comfort to refugees and others. They are as much heroes as brave soldiers trying to bring peace in civil wars.

Most of the aid workers killed have been locals hired by international groups. The most prevalent attacks occur during road travel. “Nurses, engineers, logisticians, and drivers, for example, all take great risk doing their work in sometimes extremely dangerous and difficult circumstances,” says Valerie Amos, the UN undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator.

The greatest need for international relief remains for the estimated 6 million Syrians displaced by a conflict that began in 2011 and now includes the Islamic State militant group. Reaching civilians within Syria, especially in areas controlled by IS, is extremely dangerous, and yet many aid groups try. About half of the displaced civilians are in five neighboring countries, placing burdens on the local economies.

As diplomacy, drones, and other means are deployed toward ending these conflicts, the world must also commit just as much in money and people to the relief side. Aid money and aid workers are necessary challenges to any indifference toward these distant wars.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Backing aid heroes in world conflicts
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/the-monitors-view/2014/1209/Backing-aid-heroes-in-world-conflicts
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe