World Humanitarian Day
August 19 is World Humanitarian Day. This day remembers the bomb attack on the Canal Hotel in Baghdad, Iraq, killing 22 people, on 19 August 2003. Among the victims was the chief humanitarian in Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello. Since 2009 and through the United Nations General Assembly the day is officially known as World Humanitarian Day, a day that is dedicated to the joining of all partners involved in the humanitarian system.
World Humanitarian Day also puts focus on the dignity of people in crisis areas as well as the safety of aid workers. This year’s World Humanitarian Day emphasises the immediate human cost of the climate crisis in order to put pressure on world leaders to take action for climate change and the world’s most vulnerable people.