The United Nations is set to honor three Ethiopian peacekeepers posthumously ahead of the International Day of UN Peacekeepers Day.
The Dag Hammarskjöld Medal will be awarded posthumously to 117 military, police, and civilian peacekeepers, who lost their lives serving under the UN flag last year, the UN announced in a statement on Thursday.
Among the peacekeepers to be honored, it said three are Ethiopian peacekeepers who served with the United Nations Interim Security Force for Abyei (UNISFA).
The UN 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).
The medal is named for a Senegalese peacekeeper who was killed in Rwanda in 1994 after saving countless civilian lives.
This is the second time the medal has been awarded since the inaugural medal was presented to Captain Diagne’s family in his honour in 2016.
The UN will also award the ‘2021 Military Gender Advocate of the Year Award’ to Major Winnet Zharare, a Zimbabwean military observer, who served with the UN Mission in South Sudan.
Created in 2016, the Award “recognizes the dedication and effort of an individual peacekeeper in promoting the principles of UN Security Resolution 1325 on women, peace and security.”
The theme for this year’s observance is “People. Peace. Progress. The Power of Partnerships.”
MG/abj/APA