U.N. Marchers Protest Slayings of Colleagues

After the fourth U.N. aid worker in a month was killed this week, thousands of U.N. staffers around the world took part Thursday in silent marches to draw attention to the number of their colleagues who have died in the line of duty and to ask for better protection.

In front of U.N. headquarters in New York, more than 1,000 employees wearing black armbands and carrying photos of their slain colleagues marched solemnly around a fountain. The world body’s flag was lowered to half-staff while U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan led marchers in a moment of silence in memory of about 200 U.N. employees killed in the field in the last 10 years.

“We can’t understand why these people were targeted and killed for wanting to help others,” said Nicolas Bwakira, the New York director of the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, or UNHCR. The four people killed recently were aid workers, bringing the death toll at the refugee agency alone to 19 staffers in 19 months.

“This is intolerable,” Bwakira said.

The marches, which took place in 28 cities, were sparked by the 15th U.N. civilian death this year. On Sunday, militiamen in the West African nation of Guinea killed Mensah Kpognon, a UNHCR worker from Togo. The militiamen kidnapped his colleague, Sapeu Laurence Djeya of the Ivory Coast. There was no word Thursday on her fate.

On Sept. 6, a machete-wielding mob seeking revenge for the death of a militia leader surrounded the U.N. refugee agency’s office in Atambua in Indonesia’s West Timor province and killed three aid workers, dragging their bodies into the street and setting them on fire.

The result of the intensified violence is a chill on humanitarian missions. The U.N. has closed its offices in West Timor and Guinea and won’t go back until the host countries can guarantee the safety of its personnel, said Sadako Ogata, high commissioner for refugees. At the New York headquarters, staff members in various agencies are pulling their names off mission lists, no longer confident that they will come back alive.

“The deaths have very much affected staff morale,” Bwakira said. “For the first time, we feel like UNHCR is being targeted for what we do.”

The marchers sought to send a message to host countries that they can’t have help if they won’t protect the helpers.

“Refugees’ lives depend on us, but they can depend on us only if we stay alive,” Ogata said at a rally Thursday in Geneva.

The protesters also want justice. Out of nearly 200 deaths, only two perpetrators have been convicted.

“What does this tell the world?” Deputy Secretary-General Louise Frechette asked the Security Council in a briefing on security earlier this year. “That it is all right to kill United Nations personnel?”

The U.N. Staff Union is petitioning for more security in the field, more training and equipment for workers and better security planning. There are only six people looking after the needs of 70,000 humanitarian aid workers in 150 duty stations around the world.

Annan is expected to endorse proposed improvements soon. But more changes cost more money, and only two nations--Japan and Argentina--have pledged to pitch in.