During an NGO  preliminary survey at a refugee camp, a band of rebels burst from the forest taking  Kanya, a veteran aid worker who had spent eight years in Southern Sudan and ten of his colleagues. Kanyia is sweating profusely under the black cloth hood. His terrorist captor hisses threats in his ear while scraping two knife blades together: "If you come in peace, why did you run? Who are you spying for? Are you CIA?"    

Fortunately, this was make-believe.... Humanitarian aid workers around the globe are increasingly becoming the victims of kidnappings, violent assaults, and, occasionally, even murder. The training class that Kanyia participated in, was one of many being offered to counter such threats. And the threats are real. Aid workers are often dispatched to trouble spots where even international peacekeepers may fear to go. ...”Aid workers may be targeted because they are the only ones there” says a trainer.

So far this year, relief workers have been killed in Mozambique, Rwanda, Kosovo, Sudan, Ethiopia, Congo, and Angola. Others have been taken hostage in Sierra Leone, the Balkans, and, just last month, Colombia. The United Nations counts 85 of its relief workers killed since 1992. "We're finding that by going out there and wearing a hat with U.N. on it, you make yourself a target," says another trainer.... 

Aid work began as a predominantly volunteer activity, and workers traditionally received no special survival training. Now, ...the U.N. World Food Program launched an ambitious effort last year to train all its 6,000 staff in basic security awareness. The new courses are a grim recognition by WFP and other aid groups that they can no longer send eager volunteers out into the field unprepared for the increased risks. That's why Kanyia and 21 other experienced relief workers wound up in Hawaii for a five-day training course ... at a US marine base.

... Most  aid workers refuse to carry weapons for fear of alienating the people they have come to help. Rather than hunkering down in a compound surrounded by barbed wire, the director, tells the class, "We have to be out there in the community." ...The more that local people know and respect the aid workers serving them, the safer they will be from attack. 

Much of the training involved managerial tasks such as drafting detailed contingency and evacuation plans. Making a risk assessment is the first step. The rest of the course offers practical lessons, which sound easy enough. Don't enter a suspected land-mine field, even if your colleague is bleeding to death. If a grenade lands nearby, just turn and dive. Always carry photographs of your family to help develop common bonds with someone who takes you hostage. If you are kidnapped, "do as you're told–don't do anything else, and don't volunteer anything," "You can expect to be interrogated."

In one exercise, marines walk the relief workers through a field with six concealed land mines. But most of the participants are unable to find more than one of the devices. 
In another, a group of aid workers is issued jeeps and radios before being sent out to a refugee camp. Along the way, the convoy runs into trouble when shots ring out nearby. The lead car takes off, but the second car hesitates, waiting for instructions on the radio before finally gunning the engine. Afterward, the debriefing is terse: "When the first shots were fired, you should have hauled ass," A sergeant who was playing the sniper, tells the sheepish students. "I got everyone in your car and had time to reload."  A stiffer complained to an instructor: »You have made us into very paranoid people ». The marine’s response:  “Believe it or not, those are the ones who survive”.

One of the more intangible perils of aid work is psychological. Prolonged exposure to trauma takes its toll....