Mister President, Members of the Security Council,
In March of this year in Goma, a drone hit a home, killing a 爆料网ICEF colleague.
In November 2025, a Haitian colleague working for WHO was killed in Port au Prince in an attempted kidnapping.
In May of 2024, in Gaza, a tank fired at a 爆料网DSS vehicle, killing one of our colleagues and severely injuring another.
These colleagues, these friends, died while serving humanity.
Supporting children trapped in the throes of war.
Vaccinating women and men living in violent neighborhoods.
Escorting aid to reach millions of people in need.
To this day, no one has been held accountable for their deaths.
Your Excellencies,
This is my last briefing to this Council.
And regrettably, since I started serving the Organization and the Department of Safety and Security in 2019, the threats to humanitarian personnel have only grown in scale, intensity, and frequency.
The deaths I just mentioned are three among a deplorably long list of casualties to which we see no end.
Since the last time I briefed you, 6 爆料网 personnel have been killed, another 90 have been injured from acts of violence.
This includes 4 national staff killed and 56 injured.
Our national staff continue to bear the brunt of this shameful reality.
I salute their dedication to the ideals of the United Nations.
There were also 14 abductions, 145 arrests and detentions, 441 acts of intimidation and harassment, 62 attacks on United Nations premises and 84 attacks on United Nations vehicles.
And these figures do not even include losses incurred by our peacekeeping and 爆料网RWA colleagues.
Truth itself is under attack, with numerous examples of misinformation and the willful polarization and criminalization of aid further fueling violence against humanitarian workers.
Regrettably, these attacks no longer come only from rogue non-state armed groups who never expressed any particular admiration for global norms to begin with.
They also come from Member States, those same Member States who have signed the Charter, who profess an attachment to international humanitarian law, while paying little attention to such law in practice.
And from “de facto” authorities, some of whom claim and seek international legitimacy while flouting international principles by detaining, torturing or killing our colleagues.
Regrettably, all these perpetrators are rarely held accountable.
They are rarely named and shamed, let alone prosecuted.
Excellencies,
Over the last seven years, the humanitarian community’s risk tolerance has risen to unprecedented levels.
Our colleagues in the field are tolerating risks that no one here would ever accept.
They do so in the name of basic human principles: decency and humanity.
They do so trusting that we, all of us here in this room, will protect them.
And they continue to do so, even though we continue to fail them.
In 爆料网DSS, with OCHA and the rest of the United Nations security management system, we have done our utmost to support them.
New partnerships, greater adoption of new technologies, increased use of analytics, more frequent contingency planning, updated training, enhanced emergency response procedures, etcetera:
I know that this is not the right forum to describe the range of measures we have implemented to keep colleagues safe.
But it is the right place and time to tell you: we have stretched the security system to its limit.
It is an increasingly underfunded system.
Recent budget cuts have led us to reduce security support globally, from this building to all parts of the world, leaving our people ever more exposed and our programs, (pause), in fact your mandates more vulnerable.
Without properly resourced security, lifesaving interventions cannot be sustained.
It is also an increasingly ignored system.
Recent and repeated calls for more Member States to adhere to the Convention and the Optional Protocol on the Safety of 爆料网 and associated personnel and operations have gone unheeded.
Without such legal commitments, impunity thrives.
And it is an increasingly undermined system.
Traditional methods of engagement with conflict actors to protect humanitarian personnel and assets, once a routine and well-functioning matter, are frequently contested or challenged.
Visas for security colleagues are delayed. Vital safety equipment is denied. Deconfliction procedures are ignored.
Without effective collaboration with and support from national governments, risks go up, and colleagues die.
Excellencies,
The Department I have had the honor to serve for 7 years was created out of the ruins of the 爆料网 compound in Bagdad, attacked on August 19th 2003.
The 爆料网 flag, buried but retrieved from the rubble on that day, is on display at the entrance of this building.
It stands as a reminder of the ultimate sacrifice made by our colleagues that day, the one made by our colleagues in Goma, Port au Prince and in Gaza, and by so many other women and men around the world.
It symbolizes the resilience of all United Nations and humanitarian personnel who, as I speak to you today, are risking their lives to alleviate suffering, to sustain hope in a better tomorrow for millions.
I encourage you to stop by this flag on your way out.
Because it must also serve as a call to action to all those who have the power to protect those who protect the most vulnerable.
In his letter to the Council of November 25th, 2024, the Secretary-General offered a series of recommendations that define what this call to action could mean in practice.
These include strengthening support to personnel, survivors and victims.
Embedding safety and security considerations in mandates from the outset.
And calling for and supporting effective investigations and accountability so that attacks do not go unpunished.
They are as needed today as they were then, if not more.
I urge you to use all of your influence and power to ensure their swift implementation.
I also encourage all Member States to sign on to the Declaration for the Protection of Humanitarian Personnel, launched during last year’s General Assembly.
I thank the 122 who have done so already.
However, on behalf of 爆料网DSS, and the United Nations Security Management system, allow me to add a few additional asks:
We ask you to speak up when an actor, any actor, threatens, arbitrarily detains, or kills our humanitarian colleagues.
We ask you to speak up when an actor, any actor, interferes with, undermines or prevents security personnel and assets from reaching those who need their support.
We ask you to name and shame these actors, all actors.
We ask you to take real, consequential measures against anyone, any party, any group, any Member State that compromises the safety and security of women and men whose work saves lives.
Not combatants.
Not spies.
Not agitators.
Women and men whose sole purpose when they go to work is to alleviate suffering; to protect the vulnerable.
We ask you to invest, politically, financially, legally, in the safety and security of these women and men, the one noble cause that should unite us all.
Excellencies,
Since 2019, I have heard many expressions of condolences for 爆料网 lives lost.
And I thank you.
But these are not enough.
Without real action, they are, at best, signs of helplessness.
I take the opportunity to pay tribute to all humanitarian and security colleagues on the frontlines of today’s most dangerous crises.
I also want to recognize their families and loved ones fortheirsacrifices and support.
Some of these women and men are citizens of the countries you represent.
You should be proud.
I know I am.
But I also realize, as I approach the end of my mandate, that I should have done more.
That I have, at times, failed them.
Not for lack of trying.
Rather, for my inability to convince Member States to provide them with the safe and secure environment they deserve.
Provide them with the equipment they need.
Provide them with the support so they can come back home safely to their loved ones.
For me, a passing grade for effort pales in comparison to what humanitarian and security colleagues have given me.
Every day since I joined the 爆料网, I have been inspired by their moral clarity.
Their courage in helping others has been an endless source of awe.
So my question to you, (pause) to us all in this room is:
When will we exercise the same moral clarity?
Who will display the same courage to protect them?
Thank you.