Indonesia demands UN action after three peacekeepers are wounded in a blast, days after three others were killed in separate attacks in southern Lebanon.
JAKARTA: The Indonesian government has condemned an explosion that wounded three of its peacekeepers in Lebanon as “unacceptable”.
This latest incident occurred just days after three other Indonesian blue helmets were killed in separate attacks in the country’s south.
The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) stated three peacekeepers were injured in a blast inside a UN facility near El Adeisse on Friday afternoon.
Two of the soldiers were seriously wounded and rushed to hospital.
The UN Information Centre in Jakarta confirmed the injured personnel were Indonesian, though the explosion’s origin remains unknown.
“Repeated attacks or incidents of this kind are unacceptable,” the Indonesian foreign ministry declared.
It underscored the urgent need to strengthen protection for UN forces amid an increasingly dangerous conflict.
The government urged the UN Security Council to investigate and convene a meeting of troop-contributing countries to enhance personnel safety.
Friday’s blast follows the death of an Indonesian peacekeeper from a projectile explosion on March 29.
A UN security source told AFP that fire from an Israeli tank was responsible for that attack.
Two more Indonesian peacekeepers died a day later when an explosion struck a UNIFIL logistics convoy.
The father of one fallen soldier, 33-year-old Zulmi Aditya Iskandar, expressed profound shock at the losses.
“We were really sad and regretful, because this is a UN troop, a peacekeeping troop, not deployed for war,” 60-year-old Iskandarudin said.
The bodies of the three killed peacekeepers were scheduled to arrive in Jakarta on Saturday evening.
The Indonesian National Armed Forces plans to deploy over 750 personnel to Lebanon next month as part of a scheduled UNIFIL troop rotation.