The 29 of May is also International day of the UN peacekeepers and this year’s theme is 70 Years of Service and Sacrifice.
The Day, 29 May, offers a chance to pay tribute to the contributions of uniformed and civilian personnel to the work of the Organization and to honour more than 3,700 peacekeepers who have lost their lives serving under the UN flag since 1948, including 129 who died last year.
This year, the United Nations celebrates the 70th anniversary of UN peacekeeping, a unique and dynamic instrument developed to help countries torn by conflict create the conditions for lasting peace.
The first UN peacekeeping mission was established on 29 May 1948, when the Security Council authorized the deployment of a small number of UN military observers to the Middle East to form the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization to monitor the Armistice Agreement between Israel and its Arab neighbors.
Over seven decades, more than one million men and women have served under the United Nations flag in 71 peacekeeping operations, directly impacting the lives of hundreds of millions of people, protecting the world’s most vulnerable and saving countless lives.