UN peacekeeping

Members of the child-protection team from the UN peacekeeping mission in the Congo, participating in a soccer match. The player’s shirt, translated from French, says “child recruitment is a crime.”
Every time the budget committee of the United Nations meets, as it did in June, child-protection advocates enter a familiar existential crisis: will the United States and China cut UN budgets specifically allocated to specialists on child protection in peacekeeping missions?

General Balla Keïta, force commander of the UN mission in Central African Republic, right, awarded a medal of honor from the Portuguese contingent, led by Admiral António Silva Ribeiro, April 13, 2019. The author of the essay foresees no exit strategies for UN peacekeeping missions because of national interests of some  permanent members of the Security Council. LEONEL GROTHE/MINUSCA

The aftermath of a terrorist attack in northern Mali. A new survey of Malians finds that they back their own armed forces more than they do the UN peacekeepers in their nation, revealing frustrations about their role. 

Michael Sharp and Zaida Catalán in a UN conference room in New York, date unknown. The two UN experts were murdered in 2017 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and their deaths have never been fully solved. Zobel Behalal, nameplate above, was also a member of the UN experts group working in the country.

Dian Triansyah Djani, Indonesia’s ambassador to the UN, wearing a traditional batik shirt from his country. He said the main desire of his country as an elected member of the UN Security Council is simple: to save as many lives as possible while trying to make peacekeeping as highly efficient as possible. 

A possible peace deal in the pipeline as the Dinkas and Murles in Jonglei, South Sudan, agree to end age-old hostilities, March 28, 2019. The US is withholding its agreed-on share of UN peacekeeping dues that go to such missions as the one in South Sudan. UNMISS/UN PHOTO

A United Nations police officer from Benin working for the mission in Mali, one of the most dangerous operations in the UN portfolio, Nov. 7, 2018. The officers conduct daily joint patrols in Gao, a hotbed of jihadist activity, to ensure general security in the city. MARCO DORMINO/MINUSMA

Nigerien troops patrolling outside Dirkou, Niger, Aug. 6, 2018, a key transit hub near the border of Libya. The author describes how the G5 Sahel force, a French initiative to combat jihadists in the Sahel region, is struggling to be useful as violence in the area soars. JOE PENNEY
BAMAKO, Mali — The G5 Sahel Force was conceived to enable greater coordination among five countries in the Sahel region of West Africa in fighting jihadist groups and to strengthen regional administration and development while relieving the United Nations mission in Mali of those burdens.

A trip by the members of the UN Security Council, above background, to the Congo in October 2018 included meeting with female political candidates (front rows) who are competing in the country’s Dec. 23 elections. Recent murders of UN peacekeepers in the Congo raise the question as to whether the Council is clear on the consequences of peacekeepers becoming parties to a conflict. MICHAEL ALI/Monusco

A memorial service was held for the six peacekeepers from Malawi and one from Tanzania who died during clashes with the ADF militia in the Congo on Nov. 15, 2018. Seventeen members of the same UN force intervention brigade were killed nearly a year ago battling the ADF. MIRIAM ASMANI/MONUSCO 
United Nations peacekeepers working for the mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo were killed by a militia in a jungle in North Kivu Province on Nov. 15, leaving seven soldiers dead: six Malawians and one Tanzanian. Ten were injured.