United Nations officials are issuing a stark warning that increasingly accessible armed drones pose a deadly new threat to humanitarian workers, escalating the dangers faced by those delivering aid in conflict zones.

• 907 aid workers were killed, injured, or kidnapped in 2025, with Gaza and Sudan being the deadliest environments.
• The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) highlighted that armed drones are responsible for a significant portion of civilian deaths in conflicts like Sudan.
• UN Under-Secretary-General Tom Fletcher stated, "More than 1,000 aid workers have been killed in just three years, and that is utterly unacceptable."