Republic of Korea - As the number of Korean humanitarian workers deployed to hazardous environments rises, and the risk of violence and terrorism against aid workers increases, IOM Seoul invited IOM security experts to provide a four-day Security Awareness Induction Training (SAIT).

The training, ending today (18/09), was provided to 25 Korean humanitarian workers from the government, inter-governmental organizations, NGOs, and Korea Disaster Relief team, to enhance the safety and security skills needed to work and live in hostile environments.

“Korea's humanitarian aid saw a steep increase in the last decade, as did as the number of Korean aid workers being deployed,” said Miah Park, Head of Office at IOM Seoul. “That’s why we introduced SAIT for the first time, as there was no standard security training so far to equip our humanitarians for deployment to hostile environments,” she added. 

"Humanitarian aid workers are amongst the 'soft targets' to attackers," said Steve Mayall, a SAIT training coordinator and Officer in Charge of the Staff Security Unit in IOM’s Manila Administrative Centre.  "SAIT will help ROK humanitarians to better recognize security threats and be better equipped to implement humanitarian programmes."

Subjects covered in SAIT consist of an introduction to security awareness, a country update, personal, travel and convoy security, communications, dealing with mines, unexploded ordnance (UXO) and improvised explosive device (IED), hostage survival, etc. The training also provides two days of field exercises with different scenarios and a debriefing for each scenario.

SAIT, commenced by IOM in May 2004, a year after the terrorist attack in Canal Hotel Bagdad which killed more than 20 UN staff, is a security training model adopted by UN and delivered by IOM globally.

For further information please contact Hwahyun Kim at IOM Seoul, Tel: +82.70.4820.2784, Email: hwakim@iom.int