The United Nations mourned on Tuesday all those killed by the strong earthquake in Haiti, but it was the high number of peacekeepers killed that hit closest to home. In a somber ceremony at UN headquarters in New York, a minute of silence was held in the meditation room decorated with Chagall windows to pay tribute to the nearly 50 UN deaths confirmed so far.
It was the largest number of UN peacekeepers killed in one single mission and within one week. The death toll was expected to rise because there are still more than 500 UN personnel still unaccounted for. The death toll of UN personnel exceeds any of the UN losses: most recently, terrorist attacks claimed 26 UN staffers in Algiers in 2007 and 20 in Baghdad in 2003.
The attack in Baghdad took the chief of mission, Sergio Vieira de Mello, as did the Haitian earthquake, which claimed the life of Hedi Annabi of Tunisia, who headed the UN Stabilisation Mission there. Last week's 7.0 magnitude quake collapsed the Christopher Hotel where the mission was headquartered, and where Annabi was working.
In addition, Annabi's deputy Luiz Carlos da Costa and the acting police chief Doug Coate were killed. Their bodies were recovered only last weekend using the heavy equipment brought into Haiti by international search and rescue teams. In New York, the people in the UN peacekeeping department who had to draft the announcement about Annabi's and his colleagues' deaths wept as they put it together. Their close colleagues were gone.
More bodies from the peacekeeping mission were being recovered from the piles of rubble in Port-au-Prince, but the UN has not been able to release all information. All told, Haitian and UN officials are projecting a death toll of 200,000. Annabi headed MINUSTAH, which had brought 7,000 troops and 2,000 police from dozens of countries to bring peace and democracy to Haiti.
In addition some 3,000 civilians, including many Haitians, work for the mission in various capacities. Soon 3,500 additional military and police will be sent to Haiti to bolster MINUSTAH, which has taken the lead in the massive humanitarian assistance campaign to help Haiti.
Many UN staff in New York preferred to work to mask the pain of colleagues who have died or are still unaccounted for. The morale is low, but the emotion is under control, from UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to the staff in the UNspokesman's office. "It is the single largest death toll in the history of UN peacekeeping operations," said Martin Nesirky, a newly appointed spokesman.
"I may have been new here, but I can feel the sorrow of the people around me, who have known so many who worked in UN missions," Nesirky said. Nesirky said Ban was "deeply moved" when he learned of the deaths of the three top MINUSTAHofficers last week.
Ban visited Port-au-Prince last Sunday to show solidarity with the Haitian people and government and to comfort UN staff in the capital. "He was speaking to the staff and said how sorry he was," Nesirky said. "He had to pause for a while, overcome by grief."
Jane Gaffney, a staffer in the spokesman's office in New York, said she was impressed by the way her colleagues in MINUSTAH continued to after their friends died in the earthquake. Gaffney said she felt overcome by the event, close to tears. "We have to soldier on," she said.
Silvie Cohen worked with Alexandra Duguay in the documentation office at UN headquarters. But Duguay left her assignment to join MINUSTAH last fall. Her body was found on Tuesday. "She was a colleague," Cohen said. "When I learned about her death, it was a shock even though I was hoping to hear from her in past days. We are all depressed by the news."
UN officials in New York, dressed in black suits and ties these days, held their daily briefings to the media. The UN chief met with the staff at UN headquarters to discuss the relief programme in quake-ravaged Port-au-Prince. They preferred to look ahead because of the enormous task that has fallen on the UN to lead the humanitarian assistance in Haiti.
Ban laid a wreath in honour of the quake victims in the meditation room in a ceremony that started Tuesday at 4:53 pm (2153 GMT) at UN headquarters in New York to mark the time the fierce earthquake struck Haiti a week ago.
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