02 March 2001

BONN: While looking back at 30 years of expanding service for peace and development, the UNV programme recalls with deepest sorrow the four UN Volunteers who were murdered on duty and the untimely deaths of others who passed away under different circumstances.

On 8 April 1993, the shocking news about the death of Atsuhito Nakata from Japan reached UNV headquarters -- the first UN Volunteer murdered in the course of his duties as a UNV District Electoral Supervisor with the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC). Equally tragic was the murder of UN Volunteer Chim Cham Sastra in Rwanda in February 1997. A human rights worker from Cambodia, he was killed together with three Rwandan UN local staffers and a British human rights colleague. Another UN Volunteer, Ekwa Mateke Wilfried from Cameroon, was aboard a UN plane taking him to Luanda via Huambo in Angola when it was shot down near Vila Nova in December 1999. The UNV was assigned as a Political Affairs Officer for the United Nations Mission of Observers in Angola (MONUA) to Cuando Cubango Southern Province. In Rwanda, Samuel Sargbah, a Liberian UN Volunteer attached to the UN World Food Programme, was sitting in his car in Rwanda's capital Kigali when he was shot dead by an unknown gunman on 4 March 2000.

Some UN Volunteers died from illness. In recent years, UNV mourned several volunteers who became victims of the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Some of these UN Volunteers were themselves assisting people living with HIV/AIDS. Thanks to their counselling activities, HIV-infected people have assumed the work, informing people suffering from HIV/AIDS about the help they can receive and speaking out against the stigma that still surrounds them.

Other UN Volunteers passed away as their planes or helicopters crashed on the way to their duty stations in Kosovo, Guatemala, Liberia, Tanzania and elsewhere. Some died from injuries sustained in car accidents while they were travelling on field missions or on their way back to their duty station.

UNV honours the memory of the UN Volunteers who lost their lives during their selfless service for others. They will be remembered for their spirit, their dedication and for the impact of their work.