===
War in Afghanistan (2001–2021) ===
2000s • November 2001 – Eight foreign aid workers were rescued after the
Taliban imprisoned them on charges of spreading Christianity. • November 2003 – UNHCR staff person
Bettina Goislard was shot dead by a motorcycle-borne gunman while travelling by car in
Ghazni. • March 2003 – ICRC staff member Ricardo Munguia was shot and killed in an ambush north of
Kandahar. He was working as a water engineer in Afghanistan and travelling with local colleague when their car was stopped by unknown armed men. He was killed execution-style at point-blank range while his colleagues were allowed to escape. The killing prompted the ICRC to temporarily suspend operations across Afghanistan. • February 2004 – Five Afghans working for the
Sanayee Development Foundation were killed when their vehicle was ambushed northeast of
Kabul. • June 2004 – Five staff working for Médecins Sans Frontières were killed on the road between Khairkhana and
Qala e Naw in
Badghis Province, resulting in the complete withdrawal of MSF from Afghanistan. The names of the murdered staff were: Hélène de Beir, Willem Kwint,
Egil Tynaes, Fasil Ahmad and Besmillah. • May 2006 — Two
Malteser International workers were killed and one UNICEF worker was injured while driving back from a mission in a UN vehicle near Herat. • May 2006 — Three female Afghan employees of
Action Aid and their driver were killed by Taliban in the northern province of Jowzjan. • January 2008– Six people, including at least one aid worker from the USA named Thor Hesla, were killed in the
Kabul Serena Hotel attack. • January 2008 – Cyd Mizell, an aid worker with the Asian Rural Life Foundation, and her Afghan driver were kidnapped in Kandahar. They were presumed dead. The FBI recovered Mizell's skeletal remains in 2023 after offering a $5 million reward for information. • August 2008 – Three female
International Rescue Committee (IRC) workers and their local driver were killed in an ambush as they drove back to Kabul from
Logar Province. One was an American national. • October 2008 –
Gayle Williams, an aid worker with
SERVE Afghanistan, was killed as she walked to work in Kabul. • October 2009 – Five United Nations staff, two Afghan security personnel, and an Afghan civilian were killed by three Taliban attackers in an assault on the Bekhtar Guesthouse in Kabul. Nine other UN staff, also there working for the presidential election, were wounded.
2010s • March 2010 — Said Anwar was shot and killed by gunmen. • August 2010 – On their way back to Kabul after a three week optometry expedition, ten
International Assistance Mission aid workers were ambushed, robbed, and
executed one by one in Badakhshan. Initially, the Taliban claimed responsibility, but as of 2011, the perpetrator was unknown. The team lead, optometrist
Tom Little, was posthumously awarded the
Presidential Medal of Freedom. • September 2010 — British aid worker
Linda Norgrove and three Afghan colleagues were kidnapped by the Taliban. Norgrove died after sustaining injuries from a grenade thrown by US forces attempting to rescue her. • December 2010 — A German aid worker was killed and an Afghan colleague was injured on their way to Mazar-i-Sharif by the Taliban. • May 2013 – An ICRC compound in Jalalabad was attacked by a suicide bomber and gunmen, resulting in the death of a guard and injuries to an employee. • July 2014 – Two Finnish aid workers with the
International Assistance Mission, a Christian medical charity, were shot and killed in
Herat by two men on motorbikes. The women were in a taxi when shot. • October 2015 – The
Kunduz hospital airstrike by the
United States military killed 42
Médecins Sans Frontières staff and patients. • February 2017 – Six Red Cross members were killed and two were kidnapped by suspected members of the Islamic State in the northern province of Jowzjan. The kidnapped members were later released. • September 2017 – A Spanish Red Cross physiotherapist, Lorena Enebral Perez, was killed by one of her patients in Mazar-e Sharif. • November 2019 –
United Nations Development Programme aid workers were attacked and one,
Anil Raj, was killed in Kabul. • December 2019 – Dr.
Tetsu Nakamura and five other staff from Peace Japan Medical Services were shot and killed on their way to work in Jalalabad. Nakamura had agreed to travel with security guards after he was warned of a potential attack.
2020s • May 2020 – In the
May 2020 Afghanistan attacks, gunmen targeted the maternity ward of Dasht-e-Barchi hospital in Kabul, run by MSF, killing at least 24 people – including mothers, young children, and an MSF midwife. • June 2021 — Eleven
HALO Trust workers were killed and 15 others wounded during an attack by the
Islamic State – Khorasan Province (ISIS-K) in Baghlan. • August 2021 — The
United States Central Command attacked a crowded residential area in the
August 2021 Kabul drone strike. The strike killed 10 members of an Afghan family, including Zemari Ahmadi, an aid worker for
Nutrition & Education International who had applied for refugee status in the US. Initially, the US justified the strike, stating that Ahmadi was an ISIS-K militant planning to attack the airport. After an investigation by
The New York Times, the US called the strike a "tragic mistake", stating that Ahmadi had not been a threat.
2025 • January 2025 – Thirty-four humanitarian workers were arrested by the Taliban. == Algeria ==