When it comes to caring for their own, aid agencies helping communities plagued by natural disasters and conflicts all over the world could do better, according to the head of a Swiss-based psychological support centre for relief workers.

A rise in attacks and kidnappings has placed extra strain on aid workers who already have to deal with the stress of working in tough environments, Claire Colliard, the executive director of the Center for Humanitarian Psychology (CHP), said.

Although aid groups have improved security for their field staff over the years, not enough attention is paid to dealing with the impact of a traumatic incident such as an attack, she told AlertNet in a telephone interview.

"It's all very well if they can avoid having staff killed but what they don't consider is the psychological state after an incident for their team," Colliard said.

"Most of the time the team just breaks down, they evacuate, they quit, they go to another NGO (non-governmental organisation) and the whole programme comes crumbling down and they (the HQs) don't understand why there is such a huge staff turnover."

The latest statistics from the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) showed that more international aid workers than U.N. peacekeepers were killed in the line of duty last year.

It said 260 relief workers were killed, kidnapped or seriously wounded in 2008 -- the highest number since the London-based group began tracking such incidents 12 years ago.

Kidnappings of aid workers nearly tripled in the last three years with expatriates often targeted because they raised a higher ransom than nationals. The ODI also said 122 aid workers were killed in 2008 -- more than three times as many killed a decade ago.

Confronted with increasingly gloomy picture on aid worker killings and abductions, international agencies are now "waking up" to the importance of preparing their staff for the pressures they will inevitably face in the field, Colliard said.

BURN-OUT

"The biggest problems HRs (human resource departments) in NGOs face around their field staff is not trauma at all, it's what is called cumulative stress and burn-out," Colliard said. "They are living a very closed-in type of life. They can hardly go out in the evening. They work in the camps then they come back to their compounds and are stuck there for the whole evening with a bunch of colleagues who they haven't chosen in the first place."

"Most of those teams are multi-national which may trigger conflicting situations. People start having symptoms of burn-out. Most often they face rampant violence with little means to protect themselves. As a consequence, they develop problems sleeping, their eating pattern is disturbed, their personality may change and then they don't work as well as they would have liked."

It's not just the lifestyle or threat of insecurity that is a source of stress for aid workers.

Field staff frequently face moral dilemmas in delivering relief -- from negotiating with warlords and armed groups -- be it in Somalia or Democratic Republic of Congo -- to witnessing abuses and being unable to respond because of fears it might lead to threats against the team or access to communities being shut off.

Researchers in the last few years have also said that aid workers working in dangerous places or in the aftermath of a natural disaster are at increased risk of developing some of the symptoms experienced by the communities they are helping.

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