Posthumous UN honors for slain Rwandan peacekeepers
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The UN headquarters in New York will pay tribute to three fallen peacekeepers from Rwanda on Friday, a statement seen by APA on Wednesday said.
Among the fallen peacekeepers to be honored with the Dag Hammarskjold medal are three from Rwanda namely Major Richard Ntambara and Sergent John Bosco Hategekimana who served with the UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic (MINUSCA) and S/SGT Felicien Rutegera who served with the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS).
During a special ceremony to be organised at the occasion of the International Day of United Nations Peacekeepers , the Secretary-General will award the “Captain Mbaye Diagne Medal for Exceptional Courage” posthumously to Private Chancy Chitete of Malawi.
The medal is named after a Senegalese peacekeeper killed in Rwanda in 1994 after saving countless civilian lives during the genodice.
This is the first time the medal has been awarded since the inaugural medal was presented to Captain Diagne’s family in his honour in 2016.
Rwanda is currently the third largest contributor of uniformed personnel to UN peacekeeping.
It currently contributes more than 6,500 military and police personnel to five UN peacekeeping operations with protection of civilian mandates in Abyei, the Central African Republic, Haiti, South Sudan and Sudan.
Agencies
