Sierra Leone Telegraph: 25 May 2022:
UN Headquarters will observe the International Day of United Nations Peacekeepers tomorrow Thursday, 26 May 2022. Secretary-General António Guterres will lay a wreath to honour the nearly 4,200 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 117 military, police, and civilian peacekeepers, who lost their life serving under the UN flag last year.
Among the peacekeepers to be honoured are two from Sierra Leone: Captain Christiana Fefegula who was deployed with the UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic (MINUSCA); and Mr. Tijan Koroma who served in a civilian capacity in the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS).
Sierra Leone currently contributes a total of 78 military and police personnel to the UN peace operations in Abyei, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Lebanon, Mali, Somalia, South Sudan and Sudan.
During a special ceremony, the Secretary-General will award the “Captain Mbaye Diagne Medal for Exceptional Courage” posthumously to Captain Abdelrazakh Hamit Bahar of Chad, who served with the United Nations Integrated Multidimensional Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA).
The medal is named after a Senegalese peacekeeper who was killed in Rwanda in 1994 saving countless civilian lives. This is the second time the medal has been awarded since the inaugural medal was presented to Captain Diagne’s family in his honour in 2016.
The Secretary-General will also award the ‘2021 Military Gender Advocate of the Year Award’ to Major Winnet Zharare, a Zimbabwean military observer, who served with the UN Mission in South Sudan. Created in 2016, the Award “recognises the dedication and effort of an individual peacekeeper in promoting the principles of UN Security Resolution 1325 on women, peace and security.”
In his message, the Secretary-General said: “Today, we honour the more than one million women and men who have served as UN peacekeepers since 1948. We pay tribute to the nearly 4,200 heroes and heroines who sacrificed their lives in the cause of peace. And we are reminded an age-old truth: peace can never be taken for granted. Peace is the prize. We are deeply grateful to the 87,000 civilian, police and military personnel now serving under the UN flag who are helping to realize the prize of peace worldwide.”
The theme for this year’s observance is “People. Peace. Progress. The Power of Partnerships.” According to the Secretary-General, “Around the globe, UN peacekeepers work with Member States, civil society, humanitarians, the media, the communities they serve and many others, to foster peace, protect civilians, promote human rights and the rule of law and improve the lives of millions of people.”
Jean-Pierre Lacroix, Under-Secretary-General for Peace Operations, said: “Every day, UN peacekeepers work to protect vulnerable people in the world’s most fragile political and security situations. The dangers they face are greater than ever, with increasing global tensions, ever-more complex threats from terrorist attacks to organized crime and the use of Improvised Explosive Devices as well as a surge in mis and disinformation targeting our missions and the communities we serve. Despite these challenges, peacekeepers persevere alongside our many partners in the collective pursuit of peace. Today, we thank them for their tremendous contribution and remember with great sorrow our colleagues who have made the ultimate sacrifice while serving the cause of peace.”
The International Day of UN 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. Since then, more than 1 million women and men have served in 72 UN peacekeeping operations.
Schedule of Events at Headquarters on 26 May
09:30 a.m.: The Secretary-General will lay a wreath in honour of fallen peacekeepers at the Peacekeepers Memorial Site on the North Lawn. (If inclement weather, the ceremony will be held near the Chagall window in the Visitors’ Lobby). Only UN Photo and UN TV will cover the ceremony. It will not be webcast live, but will be available on demand soon after the event: https://media.un.org/
10:00 a.m.: The Dag Hammarskjöld Medal, Military Gender Advocate of the Year, and Captain Mbaye Diagne Medal for Exceptional Courage ceremonies will be held in the Trusteeship Council and shown live on UN Webcast: https://media.un.org/
12:00 p.m.: Under-Secretary-General for Peace Operations, Jean-Pierre Lacroix will be the guest at the noon briefing. It will be webcast live at https://media.un.org/
Our blue hamlet men and women part of our well respected members of the Republic of Sierra Leone armed forces working under the auspices of the United Nations peace keeping operations in some of the most conflicts ridden areas of Africa deserved all the accolades that the United Nations can offer our men and women in blue that are risking life and limb to bring the peace we enjoy today and some times take for granted , thanks in no part to Bio and his one directiionless government that has been working flat out since he assumedd office back in 2018 to undermine the peace building efforts we have managed to nurture since the end of the brutal senseless RUF war .We are not going to sit back and allow any Sierra Leoenan put our country’s security at risk again through their misguided economic policies .We will call you out where ever we are given the opportunity to do so .Since the end of our civil wars our country have repaid our depth of gratitude we owed to the United Nations by participating in the peace keeping operations missions any time we are called upon to make a contribution. Our country is first amongst equals .
Despite our small population, we are still punching above our weights . We should be proud of our country. Sierra Leone peacekeepers have participated in many of Africas hot spots helping sow the seeds of peace and maintain the peace that for far too long eluded some of our fellow Africans that are traumatised by civil wars ,just as we were in the 90s when Foday Sankoh , Sam Bokarie , and Issah Sesay and their misguided henchmen and women launched their so-called revolution against the State of Sierra Leone and it’s unsespecting population .The consequences of which can still be seen around us ttoy .Apart from.the loss of lives , the amputees and the mental break down of our youths today and abuse of drugs by this former child soldiers that were copted to fight in that senseless civil war A lot of them are suffering from PTSD but there is no help forthcoming form this corruptpt Bio government . Today despite all that Sierra leone is looked upon by our international partners as a role model of what it means to go through the trauma of civil wars and come out the other end standing tall amongt the peaceful nations of the world .We are all proud of our country for the great efforts we have made .
Today we are in a unique position to export peace to countries to Somalia, Dufour and Mali where the military junta is engaged in a deadly fight against fanatical jihadist that have misrepresented the teachings of Islam for their own selfish ends..Back in the late 90s and earlier 2000s when our country’s was experiencing the brutalities of the RUF civil wars , the United Nations deployed one of the largest peacekeeping operation mission in the world to help put an end to the madness that have come to gripped our nation, as Charles Taylor the Liberian dictator and his Sierra Leonean useful idiots that subjected our country to the most brutal acts of savagery and destruction of innocent human lives we have ever seen .We have come a long way and long may the peace that continues to shine on our country continue.We should not let Boi and his ilk mortgage our peace for political expediency.