The UN Headquarters will observe the International Day of the United Nations Peacekeepers on Wednesday and Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will lay a wreath to honour all fallen peacekeepers.
The UN chief will preside over a ceremony at which the Dag Hammarskjold medal will be awarded posthumously to 117 military, police and civilian personnel who lost their lives while serving in peacekeeping operations during 2016.
According to press release, five fallen peacekeepers from Pakistan are among the 117 who will posthumously receive the medal – Havildar Abdul Majeed Khan and Havildar Zishan Ahmed, who served with the UN mission in Congo; Lt-Colonel Muhammad Ashraf, who served in Cote d’Ivoire; Naik Qaiser Abbas, who was deployed with the UN mission in the Central African Republic; and Shabnam Khan who served in a civilian capacity with the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan.
“Every day, peacekeepers help bring peace and stability to war-torn societies around the world. On the International Day of the UN Peacekeepers, we pay tribute to the more than 3,500 peacekeepers who have given their lives in the service of peace since 1948,” the secretary-general said in a video message to mark the day.
“Their sacrifice only strengthens our commitment to ensuring that United Nations peacekeepers continue protecting civilians in harm’s way, promoting human rights and the rule of law, removing landmines, advancing negotiations and securing a better future in the places they are deployed. Now, more than ever, it is essential that we continue investing in peace around the world,” he said.
“We pay our greatest respects to the courageous peacekeepers who are no longer with us today. I offer my deepest and most sincere condolences to the families of those we honour and to the bereaved. It’s critical that we continue to invest in peace and make every effort to carry forward their noble work, and that we continue to pursue reform efforts to make UN peacekeeping more efficient and effective. That is the best way we can honour the memories and sacrifices of our fallen peacekeepers,” said Jean-Pierre Lacroix, under-secretary-general for Peacekeeping Operations.
Today, more than 96,000 uniformed personnel from 124 troop-and-police-contributing countries serve under the blue flag, alongside more than 15,000 international and national civilian staff and nearly 1,600 UN Volunteers. Pakistan is the third largest contributor of the military and the police personnel to the UN peacekeeping.
It currently deploys more than 7,100 uniformed personnel to the UN peace operations in the Central African Republic, Cote d’Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Haiti, Liberia, South Sudan, Sudan and the Western Sahara.
