Pinoy soldier among fallen peacekeepers honored by UN

A Filipino soldier will be among the over 100 fallen peacekeepers who will be honored posthumously in New York on May 29 during the celebration of International Day of United Nations Peacekeepers.

Sgt. Benson Angot, who died of malaria in October last year while serving in Liberia, was one of the 106 peacekeepers who died while on duty in 2013.

“We grieve with their friends and families and we recommit ourselves to ensure that their contributions to the cause of peace will never be forgotten,” said Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in a statement Wednesday.

A total number 3,200 personnel have been lost since the first UN peacekeeping mission, the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO), at Palestine in 1948.

Angot and other peacekeepers, composed of police, UN, and international volunteers, will be commemorated at the UN's headquarters in New York, with Ban himself presenting the Dag Hammarskjöld Medal.

The Dag Hammarskjöld Medal was established in 2000 as a standard award to personnel who lost their life during active service with the UN.

“Our courageous peacekeepers who made this ultimate sacrifice did so so that others could have a better life,” Ban said.

“I express my deepest and most sincere condolences to the families and friends of those we honor today,” he added. “We honor their memory and pay tribute to their dedication.”

A total of 676 military and police personnel from the Philippines are deployed to peacekeeping missions in Cote d'Ivoire, Haiti, India-Pakistan, Liberia, and the Middle East.

Currently, there are 85,000 military personnel, 12,500 police officers, 17,000 international civilian and national staff serving in 16 UN outfits on four continents. — Rie Takumi/KBK, GMA News

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Vietnam condemns China's 'brutal behavior' in fisher attack ---- Agence France-Presse

HANOI, Vietnam — Vietnam's foreign ministry condemned on Wednesday China's "brutal behavior" during a violent attack on Vietnamese fishers in the disputed South China Sea. The 10 fishermen were reportedly beaten with iron bars and robbed of thousands of dollars' worth of fish and equipment on Sunday off the Paracel Islands -- an archipelago in the resource-rich waterway claimed by China, Vietnam, the Philippines, Taiwan, Malaysia and Brunei. Vietnam "resolutely protests the brutal behavior of Chinese law enforcement forces against Vietnamese fishermen and fishing vessels operating in the Hoang Sa archipelago of Vietnam", foreign ministry spokesperson Vietnam Pham Thu Hang said in a statement, using the Vietnamese term for the Paracel Islands. "The above actions of Chinese law enforcement forces seriously violated Vietnam's sovereignty" over the archipelago, the statement said. Four of the Vietnamese crew were taken to hospital on Monday
Read more

Russia captures town after 2 years of Ukrainian resistance --- Reuters

Russian forces now control 98.5% of Luhansk, 60% of Donetsk MOSCOW: Russian troops on Wednesday took charge of the eastern Ukrainian town of Vuhledar, a bastion that had resisted intense attacks since Russia launched its full-scale assault in 2022. The advance of Moscow's forces, which control just under a fifth of Ukraine, has underlined Russia's vast superiority in men and materiel as Ukraine pleads for more weapons from the Western allies that have been supporting it. Ukraine's eastern military command said it had ordered a pullback from the hilltop coal mining town to avoid encirclement by Russian troops and "preserve personnel and military equipment". The Russian defense ministry did not mention Vuhledar in its daily battlefield report. Russian Telegram channels, however, published video of troops waving the Russian tricolor flag over shattered buildings. The town, which had a population of over 14,000 before the war, has been devastated, with Soviet-era
Read more

UP Diliman Professors Share Scientists’ Procurement Struggles at Senate Hearing

By Harvey Sapigao Senate hearing of the revised procurement law (Photo credit: Senate of the Philippines) College of Science (CS) Dean Giovanni Tapang held up a little white device as he finished his presentation. “This is a ₱150,000 component,” he described. “Isa lang gumagawa nito sa buong mundo, pero ang hirap pilitin sila na magregister sa PhilGEPS,” he continued, referring to the requirement that foreign companies must first register to the Philippine Government Electronic Procurement System (PhilGEPS) before they can sell products to local scientists. Marine Science Institute (MSI) Deputy Director Dr. Irene Rodriguez explained that the small device is a resin that filters metals in water. “May budget tayo,” she said, “pero ang problema ko ay ‘yung resin na ito.” This and other bottlenecks brought about by the procurement law, or the Government Procurement Reform Act (RA 9184), slow down research and development in the country. UPD leaders were invited to the Senate he
Read more