OCHA tells Security Council protecting civilians cannot be outsourced, postponed, or diluted

Briefing to the Security Council on the protection of civilians in armed conflict by Edem Wosornu, Director, Crisis Response Division for OCHA, on behalf of Tom Fletcher, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator

New York, 20 May 2026

As delivered

Mr. President,

One civilian was killed approximately every 14 minutes in 2025.

These are only the deaths that the United Nations could document across [20] armed conflicts.

We know the real toll is far higher in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, in Sudan, in Ukraine, in the occupied Palestinian territory and beyond.

I saw some of this devastation myself over the past year during my visits to countries affected by war.

Civilians, including children, are killed in their homes, in markets, at work, at school, on roads, and while fleeing for safety.

All too often, they are not collateral damage. They are the target.

Explosive weapons continue to tear through towns and cities, destroying not only lives but the systems that sustain them such as power grids, water networks, schools, and hospitals.

Health care is under attack. Ten years after this Council adopted Resolution 2286 on the protection of health care in armed conflict, the situation has only gotten worse.

In 2025, the United Nations recorded more than 1,350 attacks on medical care across 18 conflicts. Hospitals and ambulances were hit. Medical personnel were killed, detained, intimidated, or criminalized simply for doing their jobs.

Conflict‑driven hunger has deepened. 147 million people faced acute food insecurity in 2025, driven largely by armed conflict. Two famines were confirmed – not because food was unavailable, but because of the way parties conducted hostilities, used siege tactics, and denied humanitarian access. Food has become a weapon of war.

Sexual violence remains widespread. The United Nations reported over 9,300 cases last year – the overwhelming majority women and girls – many of whom will struggle to get the basic assistance they need. We know that number unfortunately is much higher.

Children are abducted and recruited to fight. Too many are injured and killed – a direct result of the use of explosive weapons in densely populated areas. Information and Communication

Technology, including social media, is used to abduct, to extort, and recruit children.

Journalists are targeted. According to UNESCO [the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization], 186 journalists were killed while covering wars and conflict zones between 2022 and 2025 – a 67 per cent increase compared to the period 2018-2021.

Persons with disabilities are left behind when bombs fall and warnings fail.

Last month, the Emergency Relief Coordinator, Tom Fletcher, briefed this Council on attacks against humanitarian workers. Since then, eight more colleagues were confirmed killed in 2025.

Already in 2026, 144 humanitarian workers have been reported killed, injured, abducted or detained as they try to serve those in need.

New technologies are intensifying these risks. Armed drones and artificial intelligence are accelerating the pace and reach of violence, often in densely populated areas. The use of drones increased by 4,000 per cent from 2020 to 2024 across conflicts.

The impact is not only physical. The impact is psychological – constant fear, constant disruption.

The consequences for children are alarming.

Mr. President,

None of this is inevitable.

These patterns are the result of choices.

The choice by parties of conflict to ignore their obligations to protect civilians, and, too often, to target them.

The choice by some to adopt increasingly permissive interpretations of international humanitarian law, hollowing out the very rules designed to protect civilians during war.

The choice to subordinate the protection of civilians to claims of military necessity or exceptional threat.

The choice to let impunity prevail.

The choice to harness technology to increase lethality, sow devastation, and spread misinformation, instead of using it to better protect civilians.

And the choice to attack the United Nations Charter, humanitarian norms, and the tools built over decades – that extraordinary scaffolding meant to protect people from and during war.

Mr. President, excellencies,

My message to this Council and to the United Nations membership is simple: there is another path. Other choices are possible. They must be made. 

They must be made because protecting civilians, ensuring respect for the law, and ending impunity is not only a legal and moral obligation.

It is also in Member States' shared interest.

In a world where conflicts are rising and rearmament is accelerating, unrestrained force and unapologetic brutality do not make anyone safer. They put everyone at risk. 

Those who believe war will never reach them, their families, or their people are living in a dangerous illusion.

War does not respect borders. It does not respect privileges. 

So, the law exists. The tools exist.

What is needed now is the resolve, the leadership, the courage, and the moral clarity to hold the line and to push it forward.

Protecting civilians requires more than expressions of concern.

Protecting civilians requires genuine commitment that translates into concrete action.

To uphold the United Nations Charter and prevent disagreements from escalating into armed conflict.

To ensure respect for international humanitarian law, without exceptions, without selectivity, regardless of who the parties are. No reinterpretation. No exceptionalism. No double standards.

To avoid the use of explosive weapons in populated areas and call out those who raze entire cities to the ground.

To stop the transfer of weapons when there is a clear risk they will be used against civilians. 

To safeguard medical care, humanitarian personnel and journalists; not stigmatize them, not criminalize them.

To keep human control over the use of force.

To steer AI and technology toward greater, not lesser, protection of civilians, protection for civilians.

To help victims seek justice.

And to end impunity.

Mr. President,

Protecting civilians in armed conflict is not charity.

It is the minimum that humanity and civilization require.

It is central to peace and security.

It is a responsibility of this Council and of every Member State that signed the United Nations Charter.

And it is what many people around the world expect the Member States of the United Nations to do.

It cannot be outsourced, it cannot be postponed, it cannot be diluted.

It is the choice we have to make, now.

Thank you.