UN peace operations not becoming more dangerous with fatality rate falling, says SIPRI

A new report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) shows the rate of peacekeepers dying while serving the United Nations has steadily declined over the past 25 years – which is contrary to the general perception.

The independent institute, dedicated to research on conflict, armaments, arms control and disarmament, says this trend remains mostly unnoticed with casualties becoming more visible due to social media.

The report was released on Monday, hours before the UN peacekeeping summit to be hosted by US President Barack Obama in New York.

SIPRI said the report provided “a timely counterpoint to the popular perception that UN peace operations have become increasingly dangerous”.

Since the UN established its first peacekeeping operation—almost 70 years ago—more than 3,300 people have died serving the UN in the pursuit of peace.

Bangladesh is the largest contributor of peace-keepers in the world with the current deployment of over 9,500 members drawn from armed forces and police.

According to the UN department of field operations, 125 Bangladeshis have so far lost their lives during the missions.

SIPRI found the number of fatalities per 1000 uniformed UN peacekeeping personnel, the relative fatality rate, had steadily decreased since the early 1990s.

It fell markedly in 2006 and 2007 after recording fatality rates of over 1.5 deaths per 1000 in most years between 1990 and 2005.

The year 1993 witnessed a peak of 3.3 per 1000, according to the report. Since 2008 the number of fatalities among uniformed personnel has remained stable at about 1 per 1000.

Researchers of this respected think-tank say there are several possible explanations for the long-term relative decline in fatalities going mostly unnoticed.

One of the most notable reasons, according to the report, is the widespread and growing use of social media, meaning that casualties and incidents have become more visible.

“Whereas in earlier times news about fatalities might have gone unnoticed, today such news can reach a global audience in an instant”.

SIPRI Senior Researcher Dr Jaïr van der Lijn said: “High fatality figures are used by many western countries to justify their minimal contributions of uniformed personnel to UN peace operations.

“Recognising that many of the common assumptions regarding peacekeeping fatality rates are incorrect, will hopefully encourage countries to be more forthcoming at Obama’s peacekeeping summit,” the researcher said.

The report also says that there is no clear relation between the ‘robustness’ of mandates and the relative number of hostile deaths.

Researcher Timo Smit, who co-authored the report, however, said the number of fatalities due to malicious acts has increased “quite sharply” since 2013, mainly due to the high number of fatalities in only one mission: namely MINUSMA in Mali.