UN Secretary General, António Guterres, on Saturday conferred the Dag Hammarskjold medal posthumously upon a Pakistani soldier, Naik Muhammad Naeem Raza.
The soldier had embraced martyrdom on January 27, 2018, while serving the UN mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Pakistan’s Ambassador to the UN, Maleeha Lodhi received the posthumous award in a solemn ceremony held at UN Headquarters in New York to commemorate the International Day of Peacekeepers.
After the ceremony, Ambassador Lodhi said that she was humbled and honoured to accept this award for Shaheed Muhammad Naeem Raza.
She added, “This award of the Dag Hammarskjold medal to our hero is a recognition by the UN secretary general of the sacrifice, dedication and professionalism of Pakistan’s peacekeepers.”
The ceremony was organised to honour as many as 119 brave individuals for making the ultimate sacrifice while standing in the line of duty to uphold international peace and security in 2018 and early 2019.
These awardees included military and police personnel; international civil servants and UN staff from 38 countries, who had served in 12 different UN Peacekeeping Operations worldwide.
Pakistan continued its proud tradition of participating in UN peacekeeping, for which it has been consistently slated among the world’s top troop contributors. Over the last six decades, the country has contributed over 200,000 troops to 46 UN peacekeeping mission “Pakistani peacekeepers”, Ambassador Lodhi noted, “continue to serve UN peacekeeping missions with distinction and fly the flag of Pakistan high”.
