JAKARTA: The Indonesian government on Saturday slammed as “unacceptable” an explosion that injured three of its peacekeepers in Lebanon within days of three other blue helmets from the Southeast 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 were seriously wounded.
The UN Information Centre in Jakarta said the “origin of the explosion” was unknown but identified the injured soldiers as Indonesian.
“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 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 war.
A UN security source told AFP on condition of anonymity Tuesday that fire 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 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, not deployed for war,” 60-year-old Iskandarudin told reporters at his house in West Java province.
The bodies of the three peacekeepers are scheduled to arrive in Jakarta on Saturday 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.
