By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, April 11 -- While the UN has still provided little information about how five Indians, four Kenyans and three South Sudanese nationals associated with UNMISS were killed this week.
But while Secretary General Ban Ki-moon offered his condolences to the governments of India and South Sudan, he did not mention Kenya. Nor, in a tweet this morning, did the government of South Sudan. Why not?
Inner City Press on April 10 asked Ban's deputy spokesman Eduardo Del Buey:
Inner City Press: if you have any more details on how the incident took place that killed the peacekeepers, but I notice that the Secretary-General’s statement yesterday offered his condolence to the the Governments of India and of South Sudan. And today it has been announced by Kenya that four of their nationals were killed in this attack. Somaybe he didn’t know at the time, is there some distinction? The Security Council, meanwhile, only condoled with the Government of India, not of South Sudan. Can you explain why the Secretary-General, was he unaware that four Kenyans were killed? Is there some legal distinction between their death and the other deaths? What’s the distinction?
Deputy Spokesperson Del Buey: No, there is no legal distinction. All of the deaths are absolutely tragic and completely unacceptable, Matthew. The situation is that our policy is not to identify nationalities or names of people until next of kin have been… until they have been identified and next of kin have been notified. As far as I know, the next of kin are in the process of being notified right now. If and when we have a statement to make, we will make a further statement then.
Inner City Press: But he did offer his condolence to India yesterday, does that that mean that all five families have been --
Deputy Spokesperson: Because all the Indian families had been informed, yes.
But now the next day, still no condolence to Kenya. The government has already said four of its citizens were killed. Ban's condolences to governments do not name the deceased. So what's going on?
Meanwhile the Government of South Sudan tweeted “We extend our condolences to the Government of #India, UNMISS & the families of the deceased.” Does that mean the families of the deceased Kenyans, too? Why one government and not the other? Watch this site.
