UN Headquarters will observe the International Day of United Nations Peacekeepers tomorrow on Thursday, May 26 May. 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 posthumously are six from Pakistan: Police L/Cpl Tahir Ikram, Police L/Cpl Adil Jan, and SGT Muhammad Nil Naeem who all served with UN-AU Mission in Darfur (UNAMID); NCE Tahir Mehmood deployed with the UN Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUSCO); SGT Muhammad Shafeeq from the UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic (MINUSCA); and Mr. Abrar Sayed who served in a civilian capacity with (MINURSO).
Pakistan is the 5th largest contributor of uniformed personnel to UN Peacekeeping. It currently deploys more than 4,100 military and police personnel to the UN operations in Abyei, the Central African Republic, Cyprus, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Mali, South Sudan and Western Sahara
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).
