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In its report “Fatality Trends in UN Peace Operations“, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri) said a total of 1 938 UN soldiers had been killed since the first UN peacekeeping mission in the Middle East in 1948, but almost three-quarters of those were due to accidents or were natural deaths.
The highest mortality rates took place in the 1990s with two very small missions in Tajikistan and Georgia, which had three and eight deaths respectively.
The Unosom II mission in Somalia, from 1993-1995, came in third place with 148 deaths, including 109 violent ones, out of 19 000 peacekeepers.
The 8 400-strong Minusma mission in Mali, with 60 deaths including 40 violent ones, had the fourth-highest mortality rate, making it “one of the most deadly UN peacekeeping operations ever,” Sipri said.
According to the report’s authors, Mali is one of the missions where UN troops “have been attacked by violent extremist groups … and deployed to areas in which there is little or no peace to keep.”
“Many peacekeepers that have been killed in Mali died in several multi-casualty incidents, often involving improvised road bombs or targeted attacks. These types of asymmetric attacks against UN peacekeepers are a relatively novel development, and the experience of Minusma underscores that the UN has found it difficult to adapt to these new kinds of threats,” the report said.
