2 Indian peacekeepers honoured posthumously for sacrifice in line of duty

Two Indian peacekeepers, who lost their lives while serving under the UN flag last year, were honoured posthumously by the United Nations on International Day of UN Peacekeepers.

Brigadier Amitabh Jha, who served with the UN Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF), and Havildar Sanjay Singh, who was deployed with the UN Stabilisation Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUSCO), were honoured with the Dag Hammarskjold medal at a solemn ceremony here on Thursday on the occasion of International Day of United Nations Peacekeepers.

India's Permanent Representative to the UN Ambassador Parvathaneni Harish received the Dag Hammarskjold Medal on behalf of the families of fallen Indian Peacekeepers from UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres at the solemn ceremony in the UN headquarters.

“The departed peacekeepers remind us of the sacrifices made for the greater and collective good of humanity. Blue Helmets continue to be the face of the United Nations in crises all over the world, bringing peace and reassurance to those most critically affected. UN Peacekeeping is true multilateralism in action,” the Permanent Mission of India to the UN said in a post on X.

India also “remembered late Brigadier Amitabh Jha (UNDOF), Havildar Sanjay Singh (MONUSCO) & Col Waibhav Anil Kale (retd) whom we lost last year.”

India is the 4th largest contributor of uniformed personnel to UN Peacekeeping. It currently deploys more than 5,300 military and police personnel to the UN peace operations in Abyei, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Lebanon, Somalia, South Sudan, and Western Sahara.