New Delhi: The United Nations Staff Union has said that at least 32 UN peacekeeping personnel were killed in deliberate attacks last year. The statement added that most of the causalities were from the Mali mission, news agency IANS reported.
The statement, released on Friday, mentioned that among these 32 fatalities, 28 were military while 4 were police personnel including a woman police officer.
The Mali mission, known by its French acronym as MINUSMA, suffered most fatalities for the ninth year in a row. It reported 14 deaths in 2022, followed by 13 who were killed in Congo, IANS report said citing Xinhua.
According to IANS, Staff Union President Aitor Arauz in a statement, “Peacekeepers and the civilian personnel who work side by side with them are on the front lines of the United Nations’ work in the world’s most challenging environments.”
“Each malicious attack against UN personnel is a blow to peacekeeping, one of the pillars of the multilateral edifice,” Aitor Arauz added.
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He further said, “It is a collective responsibility of the international community to put in place appropriate mechanisms to ensure accountability for these heinous acts, which may constitute war crimes under international law.”
The staff union said that the 32 killed in 2022 take the number of people associated with the UN and killed in deliberate attacks in the past 13 years to 494. The attacks vary from improvised explosive devices, rocket-propelled grenades, artillery fire, mortar rounds, landmines, armed and successive ambushes, convoy attacks, suicide attacks and targeted assassinations.
Country-wise number of peacekeepers who died in 2022 are- 7 from Egypt, 7 from Pakistan, 4 from Chad, 3 from Bangladesh, 2 from India, 2 from Nigeria, 1 each from Guinea, Ireland, Jordan, Morocco, Nepal, Russia and Serbia.
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