(13) Aid workers have lost their lives in South Sudanese attacks: UN says

Khartoum-SudaneseOnline- UN Assistant Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Kyung-wha Kang has revealed that (13) aid workers have already lost their lives, some have disappeared, and some have been taken hostage in South Sudan.
"Because of the ethnic identity of [members of] the national staff, it is difficult to work in some areas; this has caused a huge amount of challenges," Kang told The Anadolu Agency on Monday
"We had national staff pulled out by the local security elements, merely based on their looks, indicating which ethnicity they belong to," Kang told AA during her three-day visit to South Sudan, which ended on Friday.
"This made finding national staff with the right ethnic profile – who are able to work in certain areas – difficult, so we had to try to keep our national staff safe," she said.
Kang insisted that, while on the political level there was a strong desire to protect aid workers, the situation was completely different on the ground.
"It's really problematic when they go to the field, where there is intimidation, harassment, assaults on humanitarian workers and looting of supplies by local security elements," said the UN official.

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