Secretary-General's message to ceremony in honour of the Pakistani and Bangladeshi members of UNAMSIL who perished in helicopter crash on 29 June 2004

Today, we mourn fifteen colleagues and friends who died in the service of the United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone. Their deaths are a terrible loss to their families, and a heavy blow to all the devoted United Nations staff –soldiers and civilians alike –who are working in Sierra Leone. This tragedy has been a blow to Sierra Leone itself, to Pakistan and Bangladesh, and to the United Nations. We are joined together in our grief.

Those we lost were part of a proud tradition of service by Pakistanis and Bangladeshis to the United Nations. Nearly 15,000 United Nations peacekeepers from these nations are today helping to bring stability to war-torn lands and safety to war-weary people, not only here in Sierra Leone, but in Western Sahara, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kosovo, Liberia, Timor Leste, Côte d'Ivoire and Georgia. In all these lands, ordinary men, women and children are deeply grateful to the Pakistanis and Bangladeshis who came to help them in their hour of need. I am confident that the people of Sierra Leone will always remember the sacrifice of the brave men we mourn today.

We lost our colleagues before their work was done. The mission they served has already made great strides in setting Sierra Leone on the path of peace and respect for human rights. Each one of them made a vital contribution to that progress. The colleagues they left behind will carry that work forward, and they will complete it. Those we lost will find a fitting tribute in a Sierra Leone whose citizens can live free from fear and hopeful for a better future.

These men were not only peacekeepers. They were husbands, sons, fathers, brothers and friends. My thoughts are with their families and close friends, to whom I send my deepest condolences. I hope that their pain is one day eased by the knowledge that their loved ones gave their lives for a noble cause, serving people in need under the blue flag of the United Nations. They died, as they lived, as soldiers of peace. They will rest with honour in their homeland. May they rest in peace.