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United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres will lay a wreath at UN Headquarters on Friday, May 24, 2019 in tribute to all United Nations peacekeepers who have lost their lives since 1948.
He will also chair a ceremony in which the Dag Hammarskjöld Medal will be awarded posthumously to 119 military, police and civilian peacekeepers who lost their lives in 2018 and early 2019.
Two fallen peacekeepers from Ghana are among the 110 who will be posthumously awarded the Dag Hammarskjold medal.
It is the late Frank Sammy Kwofie who served with the UN police within the UN Mission for Africa in Darfur (UNAMID); and the late CPL Mercy Adade who served with the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL)
At a special ceremony, the Secretary-General will present Captain Mbaye Diagne's Medal for outstanding posthumous courage to Private Chancy Chitete of Malawi. The medal is named after a Senegalese peacekeeper killed in Rwanda in 1994 after rescuing innumerable civilian lives. This is the first time this medal has been awarded since the inaugural medal was awarded to Captain Diagne's family in his honor in 2016.
Private Chitete served in the United Nations Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO). He was killed last year by saving the life of another Tanzanian peacekeeping soldier seriously injured during an operation against the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF). aimed to stop attacks on local cities and to prevent the disruption of the Ebola response.
His comrade survived and the heroism and sacrifices of Private Chitete helped peacekeepers achieve their goal of protecting civilians and forcing the ADF to withdraw from the area. It is expected that the family of Private Chitete will receive the medal on his behalf at the Day of Blue Helmets commemorations in New York.
In a video message on the occasion of the Blue Helmets Day, the Secretary General said: "We pay tribute today to more than a million men and women who have Served as Blue Helmets since our first mission in 1948. We remember the more than 3,800 staff who paid the ultimate price. And we express our deepest gratitude to the 100,000 civilian, police and military peacekeepers deployed around the world today as well as to the countries that provide these courageous and dedicated men and women. "
Ghana is the ninth largest contributor of United Nations peacekeeping personnel. It currently provides nearly 2,800 military and police personnel to UN peacekeeping operations in Abyei, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, Lebanon, Mali, Middle East, Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan, Sudan and Western Sahara.
The overall theme of this year's commemoration is "Protecting Civilians, Protecting Peace". In his message, the Secretary-General said: "This year, the United Nations marks the twentieth anniversary of the Security Council, which mandated a peacekeeping mission to protect civilians. Blue Helmets protect men, women and children from violence every day, often at great risk. "
Jean-Pierre Lacroix, Under-Secretary-General for Peace Operations, said: "United Nations peacekeeping operations are deployed in some of the most complex and difficult places, protecting some of the most vulnerable. We are working in partnership with Member States to implement the Secretary-General's "Action for Peacekeeping" initiative to strengthen peacekeeping, including enhancing the protection of civilians, which is at the heart of our work. job. For hundreds of millions of people, peacekeeping is the last hope and needs our full support. "
The General Assembly established the United Nations International Day of Peacekeepers in 2002 to honor all men and women involved in peacekeeping and to honor the memory of those who lost their lives for peace. cause of peace. The General Assembly declared May 29 as International Day of United Nations Peacekeepers in commemoration of the day in 1948, when the first United Nations peacekeeping mission, the United Nations Oversight Agency, the Truce (UNTSO), had begun operations in Palestine.
While the Day will be celebrated at United Nations Headquarters on April 24, United Nations missions and offices around the world will commemorate this day on May 29.
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