One of the most distressing decisions that relief organisations, like Oxfam, ever have to take is the one that could see an international aid programme close down and the people we have been working with abandoned.

And when Amnesty staff and witnesses are forced to leave an area, both civilians and armed forces know that there will be nobody left to testify to unlawful killings and grave human rights abuses.

But, when staff are threatened by armed violence, often there is no choice.

180 civilian aid workers were killed in acts of violence between 1997 and 2001. In 2001-2, Oxfam GB temporarily suspended emergency assistance programmes in nine countries, had staff hospitalised twice, and completely closed one programme because of the threat of armed violence.

Relief programmes deliver food, water, sanitation, and basic health care in emergency situations. Suspending one, even for a short period, has obvious and direct effects.

And it’s not just attacks on staff that compound emergency situations and deny vital aid to hundreds of thousands of people. In winter 2001, bomb damage to World Food Program and International Committee of Red Cross food stores made it even more difficult to get food to families whose crops had failed in Afghanistan.