United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres, has said the Gambia is the 56th largest contributor of uniformed personnel to UN peacekeeping.
In a video message on Friday to mark UN Peacekeepers Day, he said the tiny West African nation currently contributes nearly 213 military and police personnel to the UN peace operations in Central African Republic, Mali, Sudan and South Sudan.
“Today we honour the more than one million men and women who have served as UN peacekeepers since our first mission in 1948.
“We remember the more than 3,800 personnel 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 and to the countries that contribute these brave and dedicated women and men,” the Secretary-General said.
The global theme for this year’s commemoration is ‘Protecting Civilians, Protecting Peace’. In his message, the Secretary-General said: “This year, the United Nations marks 20 years since the Security Council first mandated a peacekeeping mission to protect civilians. Peacekeepers protect men, women and children from violence every day, often at great personal risk.”
Jean-Pierre Lacroix, Under-Secretary-General for Peace Operations, said: “UN Peacekeeping deploys to some of the most complex and a difficult place, protecting some of the world’s most vulnerable.
“We are working in partnership with Member States to implement the Secretary-General’s Action for Peacekeeping initiative to strengthen peacekeeping, including to improve how we protect civilians, which is at the heart of our work. For hundreds of millions, peacekeeping is the last best hope and it needs all our support.”
The International Day of United Nations Peacekeepers was established by the General Assembly in 2002, to pay tribute to all men and women serving in peacekeeping, and to honour the memory of those who have lost their lives in the cause of peace.
The General Assembly designated 29 May as the International Day of UN Peacekeepers in commemoration of the day in 1948 when the UN’s first peacekeeping mission, the UN Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO), began operations in Palestine.
While the Day will be marked at UN Headquarters on 24 May, UN missions and offices around the world will commemorate the Day on 29 May
