The United Nations has recorded the deaths of 32 troops and associated personnel of its peacekeeping forces in armed attacks during 2022, particularly in Mali and the Democratic Republic of Congo, the UN Staff Union has reported.
The dead have been identified as 28 military personnel and four police officers, including one woman, Aitor Arauz said in his report, presented on Friday.
The UN regrets that, for the ninth consecutive year, the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) has been the body most affected by violence, registering 14 fatalities.
In second place was the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO), which recorded 13 fatalities, followed by four fatalities in the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic (MINUSCA) and one fatality in the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL).
Arauz recalled that «peacekeepers and the civilian personnel who work alongside them are on the front line of the UN’s work in the world’s most challenging environments.»
«We honor the memory of our 32 colleagues whose lives were taken in 2022,» he added, before denouncing «every malicious attack against UN personnel» as «a blow to peacekeeping, one of the pillars of the multilateral edifice.»
«It is a collective responsibility of the international community to establish appropriate mechanisms to ensure accountability for these heinous acts, which can constitute war crimes under international law,» added the union president.
By nationality, the Blue Helmets killed in 2022 were from Bangladesh (3), Chad (4), Egypt (7), Guinea (1), India (2), Ireland (1), Jordan (1), Morocco (1) , Nepal (1), Nigeria (2), Pakistan (7), the Russian Federation (1) and Serbia (1).
This brings the death toll among peacekeepers to 494 killed in the last 12 years by improvised explosive devices, rocket-propelled grenades, artillery fire, mortar shells, landmines, armed and successive ambushes, convoy attacks, suicide bombings and targeted assassinations.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
