{"id":3605,"date":"2024-03-21T10:17:42","date_gmt":"2024-03-21T09:17:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bnd.ngo\/blog\/2024\/03\/21\/areas-at-risk-for-humanitarian-mission-workers-focus-on-west-africa\/"},"modified":"2024-06-13T14:50:41","modified_gmt":"2024-06-13T12:50:41","slug":"areas-at-risk-for-humanitarian-mission-workers-focus-on-west-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bnd.ngo\/en\/blog\/2024\/03\/21\/areas-at-risk-for-humanitarian-mission-workers-focus-on-west-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"Areas at risk for humanitarian mission workers: Focus on West Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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A recent study released by the global organization for the safety of NGOs, known as the International NGO Safety Organization (INSO), has highlighted a significant concern for the safety of those involved in humanitarian missions, recording over the last year a total of 60 kidnapping incidents involving 146 staff members from various NGOs spread across 15 different countries. <\/span><\/span>Operating in unstable regions, particularly those prone to conflict, represents a constant challenge for NGOs, who work to assist the most vulnerable communities.<\/span><\/span> To counter these dangers, INSO is dedicated to detailed analysis of industry-relevant data and provides proactive support to organizations on the ground, including alerts, strategic meetings and coordination in emergency situations. <\/span><\/span>Among the various threats, kidnappings of personnel emerge as the most frequent.<\/span><\/span> Throughout 2023, INSO documented 60 cases, affecting 146 individuals in 15 countries, showing a slight decrease compared to previous years.<\/span><\/span> Interestingly, almost half of these incidents involved local NGO staff. <\/span><\/span>The Sahel region has shown an increase in kidnappings over the years, with a particularly critical situation in 2021 and 2022. However, in 2023, there was a reduction in such incidents, attributed more to a contraction in humanitarian activities than to a improvement of safety conditions. <\/span><\/span>The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) still stands out as a particularly at-risk area, with almost a third of seizures reported.<\/span><\/span> Many of these crimes are motivated by profit, but there have also been cases where NGO staff have been targeted in retaliation or to influence public opinion. <\/span><\/span>In particular, groups such as the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) and Jama\u2019atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda\u2019adati wal-Jihad (JAS) in Nigeria and around Lake Chad have shown targeted hostility towards NGOs.<\/span><\/span> Cases of targeted kidnappings to influence or punish have also occurred in Cameroon. <\/span><\/span>The data shows that armed groups are the main perpetrators of kidnappings, although they recorded a decline in 2023. For the foreseeable future, particular attention is recommended in five countries, including Mali, Haiti, DRC, Cameroon and Burkina Faso, identified as hot spots high risk.<\/span><\/span> NGOs are urged to intensify monitoring and analysis of these incidents to strengthen safety plans and establish clear guidelines for staff in the most dangerous areas.<\/span><\/span> Access to INSO’s CHDC is promoted as a key resource to inform informed decisions and risk mitigation strategies.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div> \n<\/div> \n<\/div> \n<\/div> \n<\/div> \n<\/div> \n<\/div> \n<\/div> \n<\/div> \n<\/div><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A recent study released by the global organization for the safety of NGOs, known as the International NGO Safety Organization (INSO), has highlighted a significant concern for the safety of those involved in humanitarian missions, recording over the last year a total of 60 kidnapping incidents involving 146 staff members from various NGOs spread across 15 different countries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2214,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[264,409,346,709,711,712,713,708,267,410,483,710,265,643],"class_list":["post-3605","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-en","tag-africa-en","tag-agadez-en","tag-burkina-faso-en","tag-emergency","tag-inso-en","tag-jihad-en","tag-kidnappings","tag-mali-en","tag-migration","tag-niger-en","tag-ong-en","tag-safety","tag-sahel-en","tag-terrorism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bnd.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3605","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bnd.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bnd.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bnd.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bnd.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3605"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bnd.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3605\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bnd.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2214"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bnd.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bnd.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bnd.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}