Protecting the Protecters

Since 2001 the world has witnessed a 1,200 percent increase in the number of humanitarian aid workers targeted worldwide. A report by the Center for International Cooperation and the Overseas Development Institute tallies a total of 122 aid worker fatalities in 2008 including 45 in Somalia, 33 in Afghanistan and 19 in Sudan.

(Don't worry, it gets better!)

With this horrific trend in mind, Jeffrey Paul Vance has started an appeal to have 2010 declared the Year to Protect Humanitarian Aid Workers. His appeal for public recognition and universal condemnation by the international community of the targeting of international aid workers can be read on both his Web site and on change.org.

Vance's brother Stephen was an aid worker. He was assassinated in Peshawar, Pakistan last November. At the time of his death he was the director of a $750 million humanitarian aid project — the largest single project of its kind for Pakistan. He left behind a wife and five children.

Stephen's murder is still under investigation by the FBI but Vance explains on the Stephen D. Vance Foundation Web site that they have been told his killers have been identified and their names forwarded to the government of Pakistan, yet the authorities there have been sitting on this information for months for reasons unknown to him or his family. He explains, "We were also told by the lead investigator that since we have no extradition agreements with Pakistan there isn't much reason to expect seeing those responsible for his death in a court of law any time soon."

And so, this is how a brother deals with the murder of his sibling — not unlike aid workers in crises around the world trying to help their fellow man. Often the wrong can't be made right but other ways are discovered, in spite of it, to change the world for the better. The world too would be at a loss without them.

If you want to be part of that change, visit this site and pledge to make 2010 the Year To Protect Humanitarian Aid Workers.

Photo courtesy of khym54 via Flickr.