UN’s grim week: 6 peacekeepers and an interpreter killed, 10 more staffers detained in Yemen

It’s been a grim week at the end of a tough year for the United Nations: Six UN peacekeepers were killed in a drone attack in Sudan while an interpreter died while in the custody of South Sudan’s security personnel and a further 10 staff were detained by Yemen’s Houthi rebels.

“It’s a very worrying trend,” UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters on Friday [AEST time]. “We see all too often that the UN flag ... no longer offers the protection that it should to our colleagues.”

The United Nations fears its peacekeepers, interpreters and other staff are increasingly coming under attack.Credit: AP

He pointed to more than 300 UN staff members killed during the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, almost all of them Palestinians, and over 300 personnel killed during the 10-year peacekeeping mission in Mali. The deadliest in the world, that mission ended in December 2023.

“UN personnel, whether they are humanitarian, whether they are peacekeepers, whether they’re political envoys, are there for peace,” Dujarric said. “They are there for the people. They need to be respected.”

The UN Security Council on Friday condemned “the heinous and deliberate” drone attack on a logistics base in war-torn Sudan’s South Kordofan region on December 13 that killed six Bangladeshi peacekeepers and injured nine others.

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The UN’s most powerful body said the attack represents “an egregious disregard for international law” and reiterated that attacks against peacekeepers may constitute war crimes.

An interpreter working for the UN peacekeeping mission in South Sudan was also taken from a UN vehicle on Monday by local security forces. The mission was engaging with South Sudanese authorities to gain his release when it was informed that he died in custody, Dujarric said.

Saninto Udol, a South Sudanese police spokesman, said Army Lieutenant Lino Mariak Chol and two other soldiers were arrested after admitting to the killing of Bol Roch Mayol and disclosing the whereabouts of his body. It was found in a residential area on Thursday, Udol said.

Mayol, a South Sudanese national who had worked for the UN mission since its inception in 2011, was taken from a UN vehicle by five South Sudanese soldiers following a routine patrol to a displacement camp on the outskirts of the northern town of Wau. Mayol’s vehicle had stopped on the side of a road after getting a flat tyre, Udol said.

The UN called for those responsible to be held accountable.

The UN also had another piece of “untenable” news: Yemen’s Houthi rebels, who control the capital, Sanaa, and much of the country’s north, detained 10 more UN staffers on Thursday, bringing the total number being held to 69.

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned the move and demanded that charges against three UN staffers who were recently referred to a Houthi special criminal court be dropped.

The court in late November convicted 17 people of spying for foreign governments, part of a years-long Houthi crackdown on Yemeni staffers working for foreign organisations.

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