Miscellaneous

UN to honour two Nepali fallen heroes with Dag Hammarskjöld Medal

Two Nepalis are among the 128 personnel, who lost their lives in the line of duty in 2015, to be honoured by the United Nations with the Dag Hammarskjöld Medal on Thursday. UN to honour two Nepali fallen heroes with Dag Hammarskjöld Medal

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Published at : May 19, 2016

Updated at : May 19, 2016 10:05

Kathmandu

Two Nepalis are among the 128 personnel, who lost their lives in the line of duty in 2015, to be honoured by the United Nations with the Dag Hammarskjöld Medal on Thursday.

Two fallen peacekeepers from Nepal—Bal Bahadur Nepali and Kher Singh Thapa—will posthumously receive the Dag Hammarskjöld Medal at the United Nation Headquarters as the on Thursday as the world body marks the International Day of United Nations Peacekeepers.

Nepali served in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Thapa, a police head constable, was deployed in Darfur.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will lay a wreath to honour all fallen peacekeepers and will preside over a ceremony during which the Dag Hammarskjöld Medal will be awarded posthumously to 128 military, police and civilian personnel who lost their lives while serving in peacekeeping operations during 2015, said the UN statement.

“On this day, we honour our heroes—the more than one million men and women who have served under the United Nations flag with pride, distinction and courage since the first deployment in 1948. And we pay our highest tribute to the more than 3,400 peacekeepers who have lost their lives while in service during that period,” said Ban in the statement.

Nepal is the sixth largest contributor of military and police personnel to the United Nations with 5,298 currently serving in fifteen peace operations.

There are 4,363 Nepali peacekeepers at 15 UN missions, including Haiti, South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Syria and Lebanon.

In addition to maintaining peace and security, peacekeepers are increasingly charged with assisting in training law enforcement and police forces; disarming and reintegrating former combatants and supporting the return of internally displaced persons and refugees.

NA to send around 222 troops to Libya

The Nepal Army is will be sending at least 222 personnel for UN peacekeeping missions once a request to this effect from the world body is reconfirmed.

This comes amid the Army’s plan to double its peacekeeping strength in the peacekeeping missions from the next fiscal year. The UN request for peacekeepers from Nepal could have been spurred by Italy’s announcement that it would not be sending peacekeepers to Libya.

According a report in The Washington Post, Italy, which had in March hinted at sending up to 5,000 personnel to Libya, has now announced that it would not be sending the troops to the North African country. That responsibility will be borne by Nepali peacekeeping soldiers, instead, said the newspaper on Monday.

Nepal Army Spokesperson Brig Gen Tara Bahadur Karki said that the UN has requested for 222 personnel for now. “We have said we are ready to deploy the personnel, but final confirmation is yet to come,” Karki told the Post. “This is a new mission for us.”