Humanitarian agencies are struggling to maintain their missions in places like Afghanistan and Sudan as their workers are increasingly targeted by insurgents, militias, and criminal gangs, according to National Public Radio.

About 260 aid workers were killed, kidnapped, or seriously injured last year, the highest annual toll in 12 years of data, according to the Overseas Development Institute, in Britain. Although the attacks are often financially motivated, a growing number appear to be political in nature, involving groups that do not recognize the neutrality of aid organizations and have called for attacks on humanitarian workers.