Unsafe Passage: Road Attacks and Their Impact on Humanitarian Operations
This fifth edition of the Aid Worker Security Report provides the latest verified statistics on attacks against aid workers from the Aid Worker Security Database (AWSD), and examines the particular security challenge of road travel. Although vehicular accidents are a common source of injury and death to aid workers, this report is not focused on road safety, but ather on issues of security (i.e., managing the threat of deliberate violence). Over a decade’s worth of data show that ambushes and IED attacks on the road have consistently outnumbered other forms of violence (such as raids on compounds or attacks on projects). Yet despite this marked vulnerability, little new thinking or investment has been devoted to innovating new and better road risk mitigation measures.