UN peacekeepers should be routinely deployed to protect aid convoys from attack in places such as Gaza and Sudan, a senior United Nations expert has proposed.
With starvation increasingly used as a weapon of war, Michael Fakhri said armed UN troops were now required to ensure that food reached vulnerable populations.
“I’m calling for the UN general assembly to authorise peacekeepers to accompany humanitarian convoys,” said the UN’s special rapporteur on the right to food.
Fakhri’s call for intervention comes amid deepening concern over the increased targeting of aid convoys in Africa and the Middle East.
Rising attacks on humanitarian workers
The UN’s human rights office said it was “deeply disturbed” by the rising number of attacks, warning that any attempt to block aid or target humanitarians was a war crime.
Recently, humanitarian convoys have been deliberately targeted in Central African Republic and Haiti. Earlier this month, a UN aid convoy of 15 trucks – the first attempt to reach the besieged Sudanese city of El Fasher for a year – was attacked, killing five people.
The most high-profile obstruction involves Gaza. Three months ago, Israel imposed a full humanitarian blockade on Gaza, cutting off food and other critical supplies to the Palestinian territory. Aid convoys entering Gaza have also been repeatedly attacked.
Security Council limitations
Fakhri said the UN security council, which passed a resolution in 2018 condemning the unlawful denial of aid to civilians, had been rendered ineffective because members kept vetoing attempts to help.
“Where the security council is blocked by a veto, the general assembly has the authority to call for peacekeepers,” said Fakhri.
He said such a move could happen quickly with a majority vote of the 193 member states required – a proportion that Fakhri predicted would easily be reached.
Escalating crisis
Jeremy Laurence, a Geneva-based spokesperson for the UN human rights office, said: “We are deeply disturbed by the intentional obstruction of aid trying to reach civilians from Gaza to Sudan and elsewhere, including through attacks on aid convoys”.
“Worryingly, these practices appear to be on the increase,” Laurence said. “Wilfully impeding relief supplies to starve civilians as a method of warfare is a war crime“.
Human Rights Watch described as “horrifying” the spike in attacks on humanitarian workers. Louis Charbonneau, United Nations director at HRW, said: “Last year set a grim record for the number of humanitarian workers killed in conflict zones – more than 360 – most of them in Gaza but also in Sudan, Ukraine and elsewhere”.
Last Wednesday, Israeli forces killed at least 60 Palestinians in Gaza who were seeking food from a GHF distribution centre, with dozens more wounded.
Charbonneau urged greater justice for attacks on humanitarians. “One big motivator is impunity, which emboldens the governments of Israel, Russia, the warring parties in Sudan and others to target or fire indiscriminately at civilians, including humanitarian workers,” he said. “The problem is they feel confident they can get away with it”.
Experts, governments, United Nations agencies, and non-governmental organisations have accused Israel of carrying out genocide against the Palestinian people.
(information from The Guardian, image source: UN/A González Farran)
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