UN condemns violence against aid workers
The United Nations Security Council has strongly condemned all forms of violence against relief workers and urged all countries to ensure that crimes against them do not go unpunished.
The Council yesterday voted unanimously to adopt a new resolution to protect humanitarian and United Nations personnel. The resolution obliges all parties involved in a conflict to comply fully with international humanitarian law, human rights law and refugee law.
The move came exactly one week after a terrorist bomb in Iraq killed the UN’s top envoy there, Sergio Vieira de Mello. Since his death many aid agencies have begun to withdraw their personnel from the country because of fears for their safety, jeopardising efforts to rebuild Iraq.
Speaking before the vote Secretary General Kofi Annan emphasised the importance of the safety of humanitarian workers. The vote, he said, would send an unambiguous message ‘to all those who mistakenly believe that, in today’s turbulent world, they can advance their cause by targeting the servants of humanity’.
The resolution was put forward by the Mexican Government and also recognises that attacks on humanitarian workers should constitute a war crime.
However, the vote was delayed after the United States insisted on the removal of language referring to the international criminal court, which Washington does not recognise.
