Every year on August 19, World Humanitarian Day is marked to honour all humanitarians who go to great efforts to assist various causes. People also honour individuals who died while working for humanitarian causes on this day.
The day also commemorates the anniversary of the attack of the UN headquarters in Baghdad, which killed the then Special Representative of the secretary-general for Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello, as well as 21 other aid workers on August 19, 2003. Five years later, the United Nations General Assembly declared August 19 to be World Humanitarian Day.
Every year, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs chooses a theme to urge people to become more aware of a current issue. This year, the international organisation is focusing on the global climate catastrophe and its immediate human cost. Its goal is to put more pressure on international leaders to take concrete actions to combat climate change and protect the world’s most vulnerable people.
‘With most climate campaigns focused on slowing climate change and securing the planet’s future, World Humanitarian Day 2021 will highlight the immediate human cost of the climate crisis and pressure world leaders to take meaningful climate action for the world’s most vulnerable people,’ the UN said in the statement on its website.
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The UN further stated that the global climate emergency is causing havoc on a scale that the humanitarian community and those working on the front lines of the crisis are unable to handle. ‘Time is already running out for millions of the world’s most vulnerable people – those who have contributed least to the global climate emergency but are hit the hardest,’ it said.
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