Mourning fallen UN staff, Deputy-Secretary-General calls for increased protection
As United Nations staff this morning gathered at Headquarters to remember their colleagues who died in the service of the world body, Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro called on Member States to increase protection for UN personnel.
As United Nations staff this morning gathered at Headquarters to remember their colleagues who died in the service of the world body, Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro called on Member States to increase protection for UN personnel.
“Each of us deserves to be protected by the Member States which we serve,” Ms. Migiro said. “The past teaches us that we should not and must not settle for less.”
The UN family, like any family that suffers the loss of its members, “must take the time to remember, to mourn the loss of our dearest colleagues”, she said. “But we must also celebrate their lives and their achievements.”
“There appears to be no safe haven for any UN staff members,” said UN Staff Union President Stephen Kisambira. He asked States to ratify the 2005 Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Safety of UN and Associated Personnel, which expands the scope of the Convention to cover personnel involved in delivering humanitarian, political or development assistance. The Protocol is not yet in force, as only 11 countries have ratified it.
The memorial ceremony, held at the UN Visitors’ Plaza at the opening of UN Staff Day 2008, concluded with the reading of the names of the 294 staff members who died in service since the last Staff Day, held in December 2005.
As an Honour Guard lowered the UN flag at half-mast, two staff members, Geraldine Adams and Jérôme Longué, alternated reading the names of colleagues who died of deliberate attacks, accidents, illness and other causes. The list included the 17 staff members killed in the December 2007 bombing of the UN office in Algiers, the seven staff members who died in a helicopter crash in Nepal last month and the four UN military observers killed in the July 2006 bombing of an observer post in southern Lebanon.
Among the fallen are 152 military personnel, 20 police officers and 75 local staff – a reminder of the vulnerability of locally recruited UN personnel. Forty-seven were serving with the UN Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUC), 39 with the UN Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) and 34 with the UN Mission in the Sudan (UNMIS). The latest victim, Mohammed Makki El Rasheed, was shot and killed on 21 April in Darfur while driving a truck of supplies for the World Food Programme (WFP).