On a sombre World Humanitarian Day 2026, we must celebrate the instinct to collaborate, survive and rebuild

In 2023, standing amidst the ruins of Antakya in Türkiye, near the border with Syria, I struggled to comprehend what I saw around me. Street after street reduced to rubble by the tremors of two powerful earthquakes - the taste of dust lingering despite the masks we wore to protect ourselves from asbestos in the air. 

Yet amid the devastation, there was something else. Survivors sharing the little they had across makeshift tents with neighbours and complete strangers alike.  While the earthquakes had robbed them of homes, belongings and people they loved, the experience seemed to have deepened their resolve not to be defined by loss, but by their shared sense of humanity. 

And it struck me that humanitarianism, at its core, is profoundly human - a powerful instinct to survive, rooted in people’s capacity to persevere, adapt, and rebuild after crises. 

Needs are reaching record levels while funding is collapsing, leaving millions of people without the assistance they need to survive. In an increasingly polarised world, the politicisation of aid threatens the humanitarian principles that underpin our work. Cuts are presented as reform, and we witness a ‘hyper-prioritisation’ process that forces impossible choices about whose needs matter most. The ruins created by genocide and war bury thousands of lives and the silence and inaction of the international community bury trust in the international order itself. 

On this World Humanitarian Day, we are standing in solidarity with the growing number of people caught up in conflict and crisis and honour those who work tirelessly to support them. 

This task is increasingly dangerous as humanitarian workers – not unlike journalists – are becoming targets themselves: kidnapped, wounded and killed. The last three years have been the deadliest on record. In 2025 alone, 326 humanitarian workers were killed across 21 countries, bringing the total since 2023 to more than 1,000. 

Each of these 1,000 deaths leaves devastated families, friends, colleagues and communities in its wake. More than 96% were national staff, working in the places where they live and often themselves impacted by the very crisis they respond to. 

I think of my colleagues in South-Sudan. They had to abandon offices ransacked by warring parties during the recent conflict in the Jonglei province and immediately started to plan their return – waiting for the nearest opportunity to reach and support those in need. 

I think of colleagues and local responders in DRC, in Bunia - at the epicentre of the current Ebola outbreak - where only one in five health centres has access to clean water. Their tireless work to reach communities, to earn their trust and to protect them. And their struggle to fight a disease outbreak which is utterly out of control, completely underfunded, and leaving them exhausted and vulnerable too. 

Across the globe, humanitarian aid workers continue to show up alongside local communities with resolve, resilience and tremendous courage. 

We see the same in places torn apart by conflict. Amid ruins, under siege and the threat of bombs and drones, neighbours carry neighbours to safety, volunteers help others across frontlines, humanitarian workers rush towards danger. 

Again and again, humanity answers suffering with solidarity. 

Today, we honour the lives, the service and the legacy of the thousands of colleagues who were killed, while renewing our call to protect those who continue this essential work.  

This is a call addressed to our own government, to politicians and decision makers at the EU, the UN, and to everyone single one of us. 

Protecting civilians and humanitarian workers requires more than statements of concern. It requires adequate funding. It demands the consistent application of international law. It requires safe and sustained humanitarian access to deliver food, water, shelter, protection - and hope. It requires accountability for those who violate these obligations. 

Upholding international law and humanitarian principles is therefore about more than compliance with rules. It is about preserving the instinct that has carried humanity through centuries of hardship: to reach across divides, to help rather than harm, to collaborate rather than compete and to recognise ourselves in the suffering of others.  

In every act of solidarity, we affirm that our shared humanity is stronger than the forces that seek to destroy it.