"One of the questions they asked: Is it ever legitimate to use force against aid groups? Their answers revealed a range of motivations behind the hostility — as well as their views of the humanitarian sector. The names of the interviewees were not included in the report.
Some of the fighters accuse aid groups of acting as spies or having a political agenda... Some think humanitarian aid is a tool to subjugate or humiliate people... Perhaps the most disturbing reason given is that harming aid workers is seen as "a perk for younger members who aren't paid regularly," says Abby Stoddard, one of the main authors of the study...
The responses from the fighters shed light on a topic that the aid community has little data on. "People make assumptions [about aid worker attacks] based on a lack of detailed investigations and follow-up," says Julia Brooks, a legal research associate at the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, an academic center at Harvard University that studies disaster response."
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