United Nations, Jan 21 (UiTV/IANS) – At least 32 UN peacekeeping personnel were slain in deliberate attacks last year, with the Mali mission suffering the most, the UN Staff Union said.
Among the 32 fatalities were 28 military and 4 police personnel, including a woman police officer, said the Staff Union in a statement on Friday.
For the ninth year in a row, the mission in Mali, known by its French acronym as MINUSMA, suffered the most fatalities, with 14 deaths in 2022, followed by 13 killed from the mission in Congo, Xinhua news agency reported.
“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,” said Staff Union President Aitor Arauz in the statement.
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“Each malicious attack against UN personnel is a blow to peacekeeping, one of the pillars of the multilateral edifice,” Arauz added.
“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 union said that the 32 killed in 2022 brings to 494 UN and associated personnel killed in deliberate attacks in the past 13 years from improvised explosive devices, rocket-propelled grenades, artillery fire, mortar rounds, landmines, armed and successive ambushes, convoy attacks, suicide attacks and targeted assassinations.
It said the peacekeepers who died in 2022, by country, were 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.
UN peacekeepers warn against sensitive activities on Lebanese-Israeli borders
The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) has warned against conducting any works or activities that could lead to tension near the Lebanese-Israeli borders, state media reported.
The UN agency’s Spokesperson Andrea Tenenti on Friday said that “UNIFIL peacekeepers are on the ground at the works site to monitor if there is any violation of the Blue Line, reduce tension and prevent misunderstandings”.
“We are in constant contact with both parties and stress the sensitivity of any works or activities close to the Blue Line,” he added.
Tenenti’s remarks came two days after rising tensions on Lebanon’s southern border as an excavator from the Israeli side crossed the demarcation line between the two countries, prompting the Lebanese army to halt Israeli military engineering work, Xinhua news agency reported.
The border has been mostly quiet since Israel fought a 2006 war against Hezbollah, except for some tensions on the border caused by Palestinian factions in Lebanon occasionally firing on Israel in the past.
