Seven Egyptian Peacekeepers to Be Honored on Int'l Day of UN Peacekeepers

Seven Egyptian peacekeepers will be honored during formal ceremonies marking International Day of UN Peacekeepers at United Nations Headquarters on May 25, according to a statement recently released by the UN.

It is scheduled that the Secretary-General, António Guterres, will lay a wreath to honor the more than 4,200 UN peacekeepers who have lost their lives since 1948.

Guterres will also preside over a ceremony in the General Assembly Hall at which Dag Hammarskjöld Medals will be awarded posthumously to 103 military, police, and civilian peacekeepers, who lost their lives serving under the UN flag last year.

Among the peacekeepers to be honored posthumously with the Dag Hammarskjold medal are seven from Egypt: Private Mohammed Sobhy Bassiouni, Private Samir Ahmed Moataz, CPT Sameh Elsayed Mousa Abdelgawad, SGT Baheer Abdelgalil Abdelaziz Sherif, CPL Elsayed Ibrahim Ahmed Mohamed, SGT Hamza Ali Ahmed Ahmed Elsayed, Private Sayed Sawy Mohamed Shawky who all served with UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA).

Egypt is the 6th largest contributor of uniformed personnel to UN Peacekeeping. It currently deploys more than 2,800 military and police personnel to the UN peace operations in Abyei, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mali, South Sudan, and the Western Sahara.