Tue 14th Waxing Moon of Visakha B.E.2560, May 9, A.D.2017 Year of the Rooster
Courtesy UN

A member of the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces salutes at a ceremony ahead of the deployment of 184 soldiers on a peacekeeping mission to Lebanon in 2014. (Siv Channa/The Cambodia Daily)

9 May 2017 – The United Nations peacekeeping mission in the Central African Republic (CAR) has strongly condemned yesterday’s attack on one of its convoys in the country’s south that killed one Cambodian peacekeeper.

Peacekeepers with the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic (MINUSCA). Photo: MINUSCA

“MINUSCA vigorously denounces this odious attack on peacekeepers whose presence on Central African soil has no other objective than to help the country to protect its population and to allow the Central African Republic to emerge from the cycle of violence caused by armed groups,” said a press release, referring to the UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in CAR by its French acronym.

Eight peacekeepers were also injured, including one Cambodian and seven Moroccan, near Bangassou, about 474 km east of the nation’s capital, Bangui, with four peacekeepers missing in action, according to MINUSCA.

The Mission said it has sent a helicopter and peacekeepers to secure the site and search for those missing in action. A medevac plane evacuated the injured peacekeepers, who have arrived in Bangui and are receiving medical care.

The Mission said it will do everything possible to ensure that the perpetrators of the attack –who fled into the bush – are arrested so that they can be brought to justice.

MINUSCA recalled that “harming the life of a peacekeeper can be considered a war crime and subject to prosecution.”

The Secretary-General’s Special Representative and head of MINUSCA, Parfait Onanga-Anyanga, extended condolences to the family of the victim, his contingent and his country, while expressing his gratitude for the work and sacrifices of the peacekeepers in protecting the population in the country.

Related story: Cambodian Peacekeeper Killed in Africa