Sri Lankan peacekeeper honoured

The United Nations honoured peacekeepers from over forty Member States who laid down their lives during the year 2007.

In recognition of their service and as a tribute to the fallen blue-helmets, the United Nations posthumously awarded ninety peacekeepers with the United Nations Dag Hammarjoeld Medal at a ceremony held in the United Nations Headquarters in New York on May 30.

Sri Lankan Peacekeeper, Lance Coporal A. Jayantha, who died, while serving in the UN Stabilisation Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) was among those honoured.

Ambassador Prasad Kariyawasam, Permanent Representative of Sri Lanka to the United Nations accepted the Dag Hammarjoeld Medal, on behalf of the Government and the Sri Lanka Army. The United Nations also marked sixty-years of peacekeeping since its first-ever peacekeeping Mission was deployed in the Middle East in 1948.