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UN, US Honor Humanitarian Workers on World Humanitarian Day

Lisa Schlein

   GENEVA - The United Nations is paying special tribute on World
   Humanitarian Day to the tens of thousands of women who risk their lives
   to provide life-saving assistance to millions of destitute people in
   areas of conflict.

   In marking Monday's annual event, the world body says women account for
   more than 40% of humanitarian workers worldwide and that these 250,000
   women work in some of the most dangerous places on Earth. These include
   the frontlines in conflicts raging in places such as Yemen and Syria,
   South Sudan, and the Lake Chad Basin.

   Patricia Danzi, regional director for Africa for the International
   Committee of the Red Cross, tells VOA that women and men who become
   humanitarians do so because they want to alleviate the suffering of
   others.

   "When you do this job, you do not think about your life," she says.
   "What you do as a man and a woman, you think about the lives of others
   and what can you do to improve that very life of people that are in a
   situation much worse than you could ever imagine."

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