UN to set up fund to support families of staff killed in action

A fund will be established to help support the families of United Nations personnel who have been killed in the line of duty, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced today as he unveiled plans for the first event to raise money for the cause.

Speaking in Copenhagen, at the XIII Olympic Congress, Mr. Ban said the details of how the fund will operate are still being determined, but the funds raised will go to the relatives of staff killed as they performed their official duties in humanitarian and peace operations worldwide.

“We have so many United Nations [personnel], international or national, who are unfortunately [killed in action]. They need your help,” he said.

Mr. Ban and International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Jacques Rogge today signed a soccer ball – made from paper and wrapped up in plastic bags and tied with strings gathered from a slum in Kenya – that will be auctioned at an upcoming fundraising event hosted by Princess Haya Bint Al Hussein, a UN Messenger of Peace.

That fundraiser is being held for the benefit of families of national UN staff members killed in action.

Each year the UN pays tributes to the efforts of staff by observing World Humanitarian Day on 19 August – the date of the 2003 Canal Hotel bombing in Baghdad, which claimed the lives of 22 UN staff members, including the world body's top envoy in Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello, and wounded more than 150 people.