Gambian fallen peacekeeper is among the 119 United Nations Peacekeepers to posthumously receive the Dag Hammarskjold medal today Friday, at the UN Headquarters, UN Banjul office announced on Wednesday.
The UN Secretary-General António Guterres will lay a wreath to honour all UN peacekeepers who have lost their lives since 1948 and will preside over a ceremony at 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.
The fallen peacekeeper from Gambia is late Lance Corporal Bakary Danso, who served with the African Union – United Nations Mission in Darfur (UNAMID).
During a special ceremony, the Secretary-General will also award the “Captain Mbaye Diagne Medal for Exceptional Courage” posthumously to Private Chancy Chitete of Malawi.
The medal is named after a Senegalese peacekeeper who was killed in Rwanda in 1994 after saving countless civilian lives. This is the first time the medal has been awarded since the inaugural medal was presented to Captain Diagne’s family in his honour in 2016.
Private Chitete served with the UN mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO) and was killed last year while saving the life of a fellow peacekeeper from Tanzania who had been badly wounded during an operation against the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), which was aimed to stop attacks on local towns and to prevent the disruption of the Ebola response.
His comrade survived, and Private Chitete’s heroism and sacrifice helped the peacekeepers achieve their objective of protecting civilians and forcing the ADF to withdraw from the area.
It is planned that Private Chitete’s family will receive the medal on his behalf during the family.