New York: In the latest attacks on UN peacekeepers, three Bangladeshis have died from a bomb attack in the Central African Republic (CAR), barely a week after a Pakistani was killed in Congo, according to a UN spokesperson.
The Bangladeshi peacekeepers in the CAR were killed when their vehicle hit an explosive ordnance device this week, Stephane Dujarric, the spokesperson for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said.
Last week, a Pakistani peacekeeper was killed in Congo when a base in Minembwe, South Kivu, was attacked “by suspected Twirwaneho combatants,” he said.
Dujarric added that attacks on peacekeepers are “war crimes”.
The Bangladeshis were killed when they were on patrol, nearly five kilometres from the CAR peacekeeping mission’s temporary base in the Ouham-Pende Prefecture, he said.
The CAR peacekeeping operation known as MINUSCA, from the French initials for Multidimensional Integrated Mission in CAR, was created in 2014, taking over an earlier operation set up in 2009. It has 14,400 personnel with 1,333 Bangladeshi troops.
The operation has claimed the lives of 169 peacekeepers, 10 of them Bangladeshis. In March, six Pakistani peacekeepers were killed when their helicopter was brought down in Congo.
