The United Nations will honour 128 ‘blue helmets’, including four fallen peacekeepers of Bangladesh, who lost their lives while serving in peacekeeping operations in 2015, says news agency UNB.
The martyred peacekeepers will be honoured as the UN will celebrate the Day of UN Peacekeepers on Thursday, said a message received on Wednesday from Bangladesh Permanent Mission to the UN headquarters in New York.
The four fallen Bangladeshi peacekeepers are sainik Sree Nilkanth Hajong, lance corporal Md Mozibor Rahman, lance corporal Md Nazrul Islam, and police sub-inspector Moinul Ahsan Khan.
In observance of the day, UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon will lay a wreath to honour all the fallen peacekeepers and preside over a ceremony at which the Dag Hammarskjöld Medal will be awarded posthumously to 128 military, police and civilian personnel who lost their lives in 2015.
Currently, over 105,000 uniformed personnel from 124 troop- and police-contributing countries have been serving under the blue flag, along with 18,000 international and national civilian staff and UN volunteers.
Bangladesh is one of the largest contributors of military and police peacekeepers to the UN and currently 7,145 peacekeepers of Bangladesh have been serving in 11 peacekeeping operations.
On the way to maintaining global peace since 1989, 130 peacekeepers of Bangladesh sacrificed their lives and many more got injured.
In a message to mark the day, secretary-general Ban Ki-moon said, “On this Day we honour our heroes – the more than one million men and women who have served under the United Nations flag with pride, distinction and courage since the
first deployment in 1948. And we pay our highest tribute to the more than 3,400 peacekeepers who have lost their lives while in service during that period.”
In addition to maintaining peace and security, peacekeepers are increasingly assigned with assisting in political processes; reforming judicial systems; training law enforcement and police forces; disarming and reintegrating former combatants; and supporting the return of internally displaced persons and refugees.
The UN secretary ggeneral said, “The peacekeepers manifest the best attributes of global solidarity, courageously serving in dangerous environments to provide security to some of the world’s most vulnerable.”
Source: Prothom Alo