World News
Thirty-six aid workers and contractors killed in South Sudan since January
By Staff Writer | 21 August 2026
The figure for seven months already exceeds the whole of last year. Violent incidents against aid staff and assets passed 450 between January and July, more than double the same period in 2025.
At least 36 humanitarian workers and contractors have been killed in the line of duty in South Sudan since January, the United Nations humanitarian coordinator for the country said on Wednesday in a statement marking World Humanitarian Day. The figure covers seven months. Thirty-one were killed in the whole of 2025.
These are not just statistics. Behind each loss was a parent, a son or daughter, a colleague, a friend, and a member of a community. Every killing must be investigated, and those responsible held accountable
Ramanathan Balakrishnan, United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator for South Sudan
Most of those who died were citizens of the country itself, working for agencies and for the local firms and hauliers contracted to move and distribute what those agencies bring in. The word contractor is doing real work in that sentence. A relief operation of this size runs on transport, warehousing, borehole drilling, camp construction and site security, and every one of those is let to somebody.
The wider picture is worse than the death toll alone
Violent incidents directed at aid workers and at aid assets exceeded 450 between January and July, which is more than double the number recorded over the same months in 2025. Convoys, stores and compounds are targets as well as people. The coordinator said the escalating conflict has forced aid organisations to withdraw from key areas altogether, which removes access to the populations that were the reason for being there.
The courage of humanitarian workers must be matched by a collective commitment to protect them. Their safety is essential to ensuring that life-saving assistance reaches the millions of people across South Sudan who depend on it
Ramanathan Balakrishnan, United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator for South Sudan
The United Nations has asked the government and the parties to the peace agreement to meet their obligations under international humanitarian law to protect aid workers, civilians and relief supplies, to investigate attacks, and to guarantee safe and unhindered access.
The money has run out at the same time
The 2026 Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan is 35 per cent funded. On the coordinator's account that shortfall threatens to interrupt critical food supplies from October. Between January and June, agencies reached 2.6 million people against a target of 4.3 million, so roughly two in five of the people the plan was built around were not reached even before the funding gap starts to bite.
About 10 million people in South Sudan need humanitarian assistance this year. More than 7.5 million face acute food insecurity, driven by conflict, hunger, disease and climate shocks together rather than by any one of them.
The two curves are moving against each other. The number of staff and contractors being killed is rising while the money to run the operation is falling, and an operation that is short of both people and funding withdraws from the hardest places first. Those are the places with the greatest need.