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UNITED NATIONS: UN leader Ban Ki-moon said that Friday's attack on the UN compound in Nigeria highlighted how the global body was increasingly becoming a “soft target” for extremists.
Ban strongly condemned the attack in Abuja and immediately sent his deputy and the UN security chief to Nigeria to meet government leaders and carry out a security review.
He said 26 agencies were in the UN compound and that “considerable” casualties were expected from the car bomb outrage.
“This was an assault on those who devote their lives to helping others. We condemn this terrible act utterly,” he told reporters.
Ban went on to a Security Council meeting on peacekeeping around the world, which started with one minute's silence for the victims, and where the UN leader highlighted his fears of attacks.
“Let me say it clearly, these acts of terrorism are unacceptable, they will not deter us from our vital work for the people of Nigeria and the world,” he told the 15-nation council.
“This outrageous and shocking attack is evidence that the UN premises are increasingly being viewed as a soft target by extremist elements around the world,” Ban added.
The UN leader was at the Abuja headquarters during a visit to Nigeria two months ago.
Ban sent Deputy UN Secretary General Asha-Rose Migiro and UN security chief Greg Starr to Nigeria immediately and added that he would soon be talking with Nigeria's President Goodluck Jonathan.
The UN has increasingly become a terrorist target over the past decade. It was given a brutal wake-up call when a suicide truck bomb on the UN offices in Baghdad on August 19, 2003 killed the UN special representative in Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello, and 21 other people.
There have since been other attacks on the UN in Afghanistan and Pakistan and in 2007, 18 UN staff were killed in a car bomb on the UN compound in Algiers.
This year has been particularly tough for the UN with attacks on its buildings around the world and serving peacekeepers as well as plane crashes and other disasters.
Starr has already had to change security in Afghanistan after a mob taking part in protests in the city of Mazar-i-Sharif on April 1, invaded the UN compound and killed seven UN workers and guards.
Thirty-two UN workers were killed in a plane crash in the Democratic Republic of Congo on April 5.
Four Ethiopian peacekeepers were killed in a landmine blast in the Sudanese region of Abyei this month and two African peacekeepers have been killed in Darfur in the past two months.
More than 100 UN staffers also died in the devastating Haiti earthquake in January 2010, the greatest single loss of life for the world body.
A growing number of experts have warned that the UN and aid groups are becoming a major target for militant attacks.
Aid worker deaths have tripled over the past decade to reach 100 per year on average, according to a study prepared for the UN humanitarian agency released in April. There have been about 40 kidnappings in each of the past four years.
Since 2005 there have been 180 serious attacks on aid workers in Afghanistan, almost 150 in Sudan and about 100 in Somalia, according to Jan Egeland, a former chief UN humanitarian coordinator.
