As deaths surge, report urges U.N. troops to fight, use force

The United Nations says 56 peacekeepers were killed in 2017, marking the highest number of deaths through violence for the international peacekeeping force since 1994, according to a new report.

While there have been spikes in violence against U.N. peacekeepers, the report argues that the sustained nature of current peacekeeper fatalities indicates a dangerous new reality for the United Nations.

“This increase is not a spike but rather a rise to a continuing plateau,” wrote Brazilian Lt. Gen Carlos Alberto dos Santos Cruz, lead author of the report and a former U.N. commander in Congo and Haiti.

The report calls for significant changes in the way that peacekeepers use force while in dangerous environments, arguing that the “the blue helmet and the United Nations flag no longer offer ‘natural’ protection.”

In the future, peacekeepers should be better prepared to fight back when threatened or initiate the use of force themselves,the report argues.

The study was commissioned by U.N. SecretaryGeneral Antonio Guterres in November, after a spate of high-profile attacks on U.N. troops. Cruz, along with retired U.S. Army Col. William Phillips and other figures in the U.N. peacekeeping department, visited missions in the Congo, Central African Republic and Mali.

Cruz and his fellow writers also lay some of the blame on the forces provided by contributing countries.

These countries “may seek to participate in peacekeeping for different reasons and interests. This is normal and acceptable, but they must perform.”