The government yesterday slammed as “unacceptable” an explosion that injured three of its peacekeepers in Lebanon within days of three other blue helmets from the South-East Asian nation being killed.
The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (Unifil) said three peacekeepers were wounded in a blast that occurred inside a UN facility near El Adeisse on Friday afternoon, and rushed to hospital.
Two of them were seriously wounded.
The UN Information Centre in Jakarta said the “origin of the explosion” was unknown but identified the injured soldiers as Indonesians.
“Repeated attacks or incidents of this kind are unacceptable,” the Indonesian foreign ministry said in a statement.
“Regardless of their cause, these events underscore the urgent need to strengthen protection for UN peacekeeping forces amid an increasingly dangerous conflict situation.”
The government has urged the UN Security Council to investigate the events and “to immediately convene a meeting of troop- contributing countries to Unifil to conduct a review and take measures to enhance the protection of personnel serving with Unifil”.
Friday’s incident came just days after an Indonesian peacekeeper died when a projectile exploded on March 29 in southern Lebanon, where Israel and Hezbollah have been fighting since Lebanon was drawn into the Middle East conflict.
A UN security source said on condition of anonymity on Tuesday that the firing from an Israeli tank was responsible for that attack.
A day later, two more Indonesian peacekeepers died after an explosion struck a Unifil logistics convoy, also in southern Lebanon.
The father of one of the two fallen soldiers, 33-year-old Zulmi Aditya Iskandar, said earlier this week he was shocked that peacekeepers were losing their lives in the conflict.
“We were really sad and regretful, because this is a UN troop, a peacekeeping troop, and not deployed for war,” the 60-year-old Iskandarudin told reporters at his house in West Java province.
The bodies of the three peacekeepers were scheduled to arrive in Jakarta yesterday evening, according to the military.
The Indonesian National Armed Forces has said it will deploy more than 750 personnel to Lebanon next month as part of the scheduled Unifil peacekeeping troop rotation. — AFP
