According to the UN peacekeeping database, 4,127 UN peacekeepers have died in their mission from 1948 until March 31 this year.
Police officer Kumares Raja Retnam, 57, had his own near-death experience when on a UN peacekeeping police mission to East Timor in 2008.
The Kedahan was leading a task force of UN peacekeeping police to drive out armed pro-Indonesia militias from the forests of East Timor. They were tasked with sending members of the militia to rehabilitation centres so they could be reintegrated into the East Timor society.
While he and his team were escorting armed members of the militia to an airport, one of the soldiers pointed his rifle at him and his team at the airstrip.
“The UN police managed to pin him down and confiscated his rifle. The situation was neutralised,” he told FMT in an interview in conjunction with UN Peacekeeping Day.
“It was a tense moment that I cannot forget to this day.”
That incident, however, did nothing to deter Kumares’ spirit as he went on to his next peacekeeping mission in Darfur, Sudan, in 2017, where he was the commander of the Malaysian contingent.
The desire to help his counterparts in conflict-ridden states took him to three peacekeeping police missions in three different countries – Mozambique, East Timor, and Sudan – between 1994 and 2018. He spent a year on each mission.
In Mozambique, he and 34 other peacekeepers were assigned to rebuild the police force after it collapsed after the 15-year-long Mozambican civil war that started in 1977. He played a similar role in Darfur with its police force as well.
The peacekeeping operation, named The African Union-United Nations Hybrid Operation, was a joint operation between the UN and the African Union (AU) to bring stability to the war-torn Darfur region of Sudan while peace talks went on.
In the East Timor mission, the peacekeeping team was assigned to build the police force to ensure law and order in the island state during the 1999 crisis that involved pro-Indonesian militias and East Timoreans in the capital city of Dili.
He said the East Timor mission was a treacherous one as UN peacekeeping policemen would have to go through forests and saltwater crocodile-infested waters.
Kumares also said he had learned from another peacekeeping policeman from Malaysia that a member of the team went missing during a mission in the wilderness of the island, believed to have been killed by a saltwater crocodile. His body was never found.
He also recalled helping several dozens of Sri Lankan Tamil refugees who were stranded on East Timor as they were en route to Australia to seek asylum, where he acted as their translator with the local authorities.
‘Join UN missions when you get the opportunity’
Kumares, now a superintendent with the Kuala Lumpur contingent’s criminal investigation department, hoped that Malaysian civilians, policemen and soldiers would grab at the opportunity to join UN peacekeeping missions should it come their way.
“It is a golden opportunity to work on an international platform where you get to know people from different parts of the world.
“I got the chance to befriend police personnel from Indonesia, Mozambique, Colombia and Brazil, whom I still keep in touch with,” he said.
According to the Malaysian police’s website, the force has been sending personnel on UN peacekeeping missions since 1991, under request by the international organisation.
Kumares also expressed his desire to join another UN peacekeeping mission if he had the chance, although he acknowledged the 55-year-old age limit set by the UN.
“But if I had the offer, I would definitely take it in order to serve the UN again,” he said, citing the UN’s respect for everyone regardless of race, religion, and culture.