Aid groups highlight growing threats to staff

Aid groups were joining together Wednesday to highlight the growing danger their staff members face in crisis zones around the world, where kidnappings and killings of humanitarian workers are on the rise.

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Report: Number of attacks on aid workers surges

Humanitarian aid workers around the globe are increasingly targeted for political reasons, bringing the number of attacks, killings and kidnappings to record highs in 2008, according to a report Monday.

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Worsening security affecting Afghan aid groups

Deteriorating security in Afghanistan is making it more difficult for aid organizations to carry out their work, the director of a group that lost four workers in a Taliban attack said Saturday.

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Taliban ambush kills 3 more Western aid workers

Taliban fighters with assault rifles shredded a U.S. aid group's SUV with dozens of bullets Wednesday, killing three Western women and their Afghan driver amid an escalating militant onslaught against humanitarian workers in Afghanistan.

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2 French aid workers held in Afghanistan released

Two French humanitarian aid workers kidnapped at gunpoint last month have been released, aid group Action Against Hunger said Saturday.

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3 Somali aid workers shot in 24 hours

Gunmen shot and killed two Somali aid workers and wounded a third within 24 hours, witnesses said Saturday, in the latest sign of spiraling violence against workers struggling to deal with the war-ravaged country's humanitarian crisis.

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Kansas group helps get relief to China quake zone

Donated vans came from another Chinese province. American students arranged extra warehouse space for donated food, water and medicine. A Canadian couple offered free medical expertise.

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Doctors' Group Pulls Staff From Somalia

Doctors Without Borders has pulled all of its international staff out of Somalia after three of its aid workers were killed in a land mine explosion earlier this week, the group said Friday.

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UN: 34 Aid Workers Killed in Afghanistan

The United Nations on Monday said 34 aid workers have been killed in Afghanistan this year and called on Taliban fighters and criminal gangs to stop attacking humanitarian convoys so food can reach millions of needy Afghans before winter.

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Today is World Humanitarian Day, August 19th. It's a day to salute the aid workers throughout the world and to remember those who have died while trying to help.

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IT'S WHERE Arab faces off against African, Islam with Christianity, nomads with farmers, and old ethnic and tribal hatreds bubble up. Where three bitter conflicts divide a state into west, south and east, in Africa's largest country.

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The men who kidnapped Irish aid worker Sharon Commins in Darfur last week are reportedly demanding a ransom for her release.

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Techies are often on the frontline in conflict situations as they set up communications technology for aid workers... but every techie needs to learn dodge bullets!

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Two expatriate staff members of Aide Medicale Internationale were kidnapped at gunpoint in southern Darfur overnight, the French medical aid group said.

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I wanted to believe the man in front of me wasn't a rapist. I knew he was a former Sudanese soldier, I knew he wanted to talk about rape in Darfur. A humanitarian group working on Darfur issues had introduced him to us. They told us his testimony was important to hear.

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At least 34 United Nations personnel lost their lives as a result of malicious acts in 2008, the Staff Union's Committee on the Security and Independence of the International Civil Service said today, down from at least 42 in 2007.

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Five incidents of harassment, confiscation of materials and vehicles, pillaging of relief supplies, and a deadly attack on an aid convoy in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) last week took the total number of attacks on aid workers in that country to more than 100 in 200 …

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KHARTOUM, Dec 4 (Reuters) - Masked men armed with an AK-47 and hand grenade abducted and beat up six aid workers on the road to a volatile camp in Sudan's war-torn Darfur region on Thursday, peacekeepers said. The aid workers had been in a convoy heading to Kalma camp in south D …

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Masked men armed with an AK-47 and hand grenade abducted and beat up six aid workers on the road to a volatile camp in Sudan's war-torn Darfur region on Thursday, peacekeepers said.

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The four foreign aid workers from the French NGO "Action Contre la Faim" (ACF) working who had just arrived in Somalia and were immediately kidnapped have been moved to a new location. Apparently a small village away from Mogadishu.

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Six foreign aid workers were kidnapped at an airfield, residents said, in the latest of a string of attacks against foreigners in this war-racked nation.

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Gunmen stormed an airstrip in central Somalia on Wednesday, kidnapping a group of foreign and local aid workers, witnesses and humanitarian sources said. Six foreigners -- two Kenyans, two French, a Bulgarian and a Belgian -- were among those seized

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The killing of a British aid worker in Afghanistan has again highlighted the dangers posed to humanitarian staff in many parts of the world. BBC News looks at the threats and what can be done to ease them.

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In recent months the insurgents have staged a series of hit-and-run attacks on several towns, and they hold Somalia's third largest city, Kismayo.

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A top secret NSA wiretapping facility in Georgia accused of spying on Americans illegally was hastily staffed with inexperienced reservists in the months following September 11, where they worked under conflicting orders and with little supervision, according to three former work …

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The EU's development aid chief said Tuesday he will investigate how to better ensure the safety of international relief agencies working in world hot spots where militaries are operating. Louis Michel, the EU's development commissioner, also accepted concerns voiced by many aid …

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Four Filipino non-government aid workers have been abducted in the Philippines.Police say the three women and a man were in two vehicles passing through Tipo-tipo town on the island of Basilan when armed men seized them.

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Non-governmental relief agencies working in Georgia are furious that President Bush has put the Pentagon in charge of the operation, charging that the "militarization" of the humanitarian operation puts them at risk.

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The UN refugee agency announced the release of Hassan Mohammed Ali, head of UNHCR's office in the Somali capital of Mogadishu, after two months in captivity.

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The brutal murder of four aid workers in Afghanistan illustrates how, as their neutrality is compromised, their danger increases.

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(..)Aid workers are now depicted by supporters of the previous Taliban regime - which relied heavily on humanitarian assistance when in power - as part of a western plot to subjugate the Muslim world.

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In recent years, the United States government has both contracted out for more aspects of development and humanitarian assistance in conflict zones and connected this foreign aid more closely than ever with strategic and military goals.

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FIVE years ago, at roughly 4:30 p.m. on Aug. 19, 2003, in Baghdad, a suicide bomber in a flatbed truck pulled up outside the lightly fortified office of the United Nations's leading diplomat, Sergio Vieira de Mello, and detonated a cone-shaped bomb the size of a large man.

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Colombia misused the symbol of the Red Cross in this month's military rescue of politician Ingrid Betancourt and 14 other guerrilla-held hostages, the government said on Wednesday, admitting a possible violation of the rules of war.

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