Celebrating our humanitarian heroes – and remembering those we have lost

This World Humanitarian Day, Islamic Relief’s Martin Cottingham pays tribute to the humanitarian heroes risking their lives to ease suffering in crisis-stricken Afghanistan, and around the world.

Martin Cottingham, Islamic Relief’s Director of External Relations and Advocacy

World Humanitarian Day is described by the United Nations as ‘a global celebration of people helping people’. This year it feels to me as if that global celebration is needed more than ever, as global recession looms and record numbers of people rely on humanitarian aid to survive.

This important date in the humanitarian calendar has its origins on August 19, 2003, when a bomb attack in Iraq killed 22 UN staff. The victims were brave humanitarians who lost their lives as they worked to save the lives of others in a bloody conflict.

5 years later the UN designated August 19 as World Humanitarian Day to commemorate those who died that day and any aid workers who lose their lives working for humanitarian causes.

Dear colleagues Islamic Relief has lost can be seen on our Wall of Honour, remembering their service and sacrifice.

Honouring those who risk their lives to help others

Yesterday evening Islamic Relief participated in a World Humanitarian Day memorial event. My colleague who attended described it as a moving, solemn occasion of remembrance, marking the bravery of humanitarians who paid the ultimate price in service to humanity.

Nick Roseveare MBE, Founding Member of the Humanitarian Memorial Steering Committee highlighted that this year marks the 9th Memorial Event. He was saddened by the increase in attacks on humanitarian workers worldwide, where 268 major attacks were reported in 2021. He underlined that 98% of these attacks were on local staff members who were working to serve their own communities.

We joined others in laying flowers at the event in remembrance of our fallen colleagues.

White roses laid yesterday at Westminster Abbey, UK, in memory of fallen aid workers.

Celebrating humanitarian heroes

World Humanitarian Day is not just a day to remember the dead. It’s a day to celebrate the living, to honour humanitarian heroes who continue to risk their lives in the service of humanity. It’s also a day to raise awareness about the plight of the communities we serve and to raise funds to save more lives.

This year the country that weighs on my heart above any other is Afghanistan. A year ago, in the week of World Humanitarian Day, the Taliban returned to power in Kabul following the withdrawal of western troops. 12 months on, the country and its people are in the grip of one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.

An economic collapse – brought on by the cumulative impact of years of conflict, poor governance, drought and now international sanctions – is causing extreme suffering, especially to women and girls.
More than half the population, at least 24 million people, now need humanitarian aid, and 19.7 million people are regularly going hungry.

Afghanistan’s faltering hope

The Afghanistan I visited 8 years ago was grappling with many challenges but there was real cause for hope. Significant advances had been made in life expectancy and literacy, fuelled by international investment in health and education.

I was particularly inspired by Islamic Relief’s home-based women’s education programme in the bleakly beautiful city of Bamyan in the central mountains, where previously illiterate women had learned to read and write and set up small businesses to earn an independent income.

We made a short video about Uzra, a 30-year-old mother-of-5 who was among the programme’s first intake of 450 women. After 9 months of schooling in basic literacy and numeracy, Uzra was running a business employing 48 village women and producing a range of hand-embroidered products including bags, clothes, toys and prayer mats.

She had been appointed to chair the health committee in her village and was a real hero in her community, a beacon of hope for so much that had changed for the better.

That project shows the huge potential in Afghanistan and it shows that hope can be revived, but only if the international community takes the current crisis in Afghanistan more seriously. 8 years on from my visit, Islamic Relief is a lifeline in a country which colleagues tell me is on the brink of catastrophe.

Islamic Relief aid workers work against the odds to save lives

A report published by Islamic Relief 12 months on from the upheaval of August 2021 does not pull its punches. It is full of heart-breaking stories of the real people behind the harrowing statistics of hunger and economic collapse. It also shows what Islamic Relief’s teams on the ground are doing against the odds to save lives.

“The international community has an obligation to prevent more suffering in Afghanistan, yet its response over the past year has been mixed at best,” the report says. “Hundreds of millions of dollars of vital emergency aid have been injected, saving lives and averting – or at least postponing – a likely mass famine. However, international action and sanctions continue to fuel the economic collapse and rising poverty.

“Humanitarian aid cannot be a substitute for a functioning economy. A new international approach to Afghanistan is urgently needed – one that builds on the positive impact of humanitarian aid, gets the economy back on its feet and ensures that people can access cash, educate their children, find jobs and feed their families.”

Our humanitarian heroes

The word hero is overused, but I count each and every one of Islamic Relief’s 250 staff in Afghanistan, nearly half of whom are women, as heroic in the current emergency. They stayed in Afghanistan when so many sought to leave.

Now they are scaling up our operations across the country to save lives and rebuild livelihoods in partnership with the United Nations Development Programme.

They are true humanitarian heroes who need and deserve our support. They are what World Humanitarian Day is all about and I remain, as always, in awe of their dedication, compassion and tenacity.

Support our life-saving work in Afghanistan: donate to our Afghanistan Emergency Appeal now.