United Nations: Indian peacekeeper Jitender Kumar is among the 119 military, police and civilian personnel who will be honoured this year with a prestigious UN medal this year for courage and sacrifice in the line of duty.
Police officer Kumar made the supreme sacrifice while serving in the UN Organisation Stabilisation Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO). He will be honoured Friday with the ‘Dag Hammarskjold Medal’ as the world organisation observes the ‘International Day of United Nations Peacekeepers’.
India’s permanent representative to the UN, Ambassador Syed Akbaruddin would collect the medal on behalf of Kumar.
India is the fourth largest contributor of uniformed personnel to the UN peacekeeping. It currently contributes more than 6,400 military and police personnel to the UN peace operations in Abyei, Cyprus, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Haiti, Lebanon, the Middle East, South Sudan and the Western Sahara.
According to the UN, India has lost the highest number of its peacekeepers deployed in various peacekeeping operations in the last 70 years, with 163 military, police and civilian personnel from the country making the supreme sacrifice in the line of duty. The total number of peacekeepers who have died since 1948 is 3,737.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will preside over the ceremony this week. The commemoration of the International Day of United Nations Peacekeepers will begin with the UN chief laying a wreath to honour all UN peacekeepers who have lost their lives since 1948, when the UN’s first peacekeeping mission, the UN Truce Supervision Organisation (UNTSO), began operations in Palestine.
In a video message Monday, the Secretary-General said the day honours more than one million men and women who have served as UN peacekeepers since the first UN mission in 1948.
“We remember that more than 3,800 personnel paid the ultimate price. And we express our deepest gratitude to the 1,00,000 civilian, police and military peacekeepers deployed around the world today and to the countries that contribute these brave and dedicated women and men,” said Guterres. Peacekeepers protect men, women and children from violence every day, often at great personal risk,” he added.
PTI