Troopers’ deployment for UN missions put on hold

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, March 23

With the global outbreak of Covid-19 pandemic, planned deployments to United Nations (UN) missions have also been postponed. The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has put on hold the move of a Border Security Force (BSF) unit that was scheduled for rotational deployment to Congo in April.

Apart from the deployment of police units, the movement of individual police officers (IPOs) to UN peacekeeping missions has also been suspended till further orders. According to sources, two women police officers were scheduled to deploy with the United Nations Interim Security Force for Abyei in Sudan this month, but their travel has been postponed, sources said.

Sources said five more officers from the Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs) were nominated by the MHA for a 12-month rotational deployment to Abyei in April-May, but their move is unlikely in the near future.

The MHA had, earlier this month, shortlisted seven police officers, including two from Punjab, to be a part of the United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus on a rotational basis, but they too would come under purview of the MHA’s directions on the subject.

The UN’s Department of Operational Support had written to member countries in March that in view of the Covid-19 outbreak in 78 countries, certain planned deployments or rotation of military and police personnel is being suspended or postponed.

The BSF has a contingent, known in UN parlance as a ‘formed police unit,’ of 140 personnel deployed with the United Nations Stabilisation Mission in Democratic Republic of Congo. This contingent is replaced annually. Several other CAPFs also depute about a company strength contingent to various missions. In addition, the CAPFs as well as state police forces also provide officers for serving with UN missions as commanders, observers or for administrative duties.

Recently, the MHA had issued instructions for uniformed personnel and medical teams deployed on UN field missions to foreign countries on measures to be taken for mitigating the spread of Covid-19.

Training for service and medical personnel will be both, prior to deployment which would be the responsible of the contributing country, as well as in-mission training during deployment. This includes certain mandatory online courses recommended by the UN.

All military and police medical teams deployed with the UN are required to develop standard operating procedures to identify, triage and manage suspected Covid-19 and establish isolation rooms in their respective facilities, the instructions state.