page_title: Peacekeeping
section_title: Impacts on individual peacekeepers
hierarchical_section_title: Peacekeeping / Impacts of peacekeeping on participating forces / Impacts on individual peacekeepers
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Gedenkstätte für die 1994 ermordeten belgischen Blauhelm-Solaten in Kigali, Rwanda English: Memorial for the dead belgian UNAMIR Blue Berets in Kigali, Rwanda Français&#160;: Mémorial de assassin Belgique MINUAR Casques bleus de Kigali, Rwanda Nederlands: Mahnmal for de vermoordeten Belgische UNAMIR soldaten in Kigali, Rwanda
context_page_description: Peacekeeping comprises activities intended to create conditions that favour lasting peace. Research generally finds that peacekeeping reduces civilian and battlefield deaths, as well as reduces the risk of renewed warfare.
  Within the United Nations group of nation-state governments and organisations, there is a general understanding that at the international level, peacekeepers monitor and observe peace processes in post-conflict areas, and may assist ex-combatants in implementing peace agreement commitments that they have undertaken. Such assistance may come in many forms, including confidence-building measures, power-sharing arrangements, electoral support, strengthening the rule of law, and economic and social development. Accordingly, the UN peacekeepers can include soldiers, police officers, and civilian personnel.
  The United Nations is not the only organisation to implement peacekeeping missions. Non-UN peacekeeping forces include the NATO mission in Kosovo and the Multinational Force and Observers on the Sinai Peninsula or the ones organised by the European Union and the African Union.
context_section_description: Studies of peacekeeping soldiers show both positive and negative effects. A study of 951 US Army soldiers assigned to Bosnia revealed that 77% reported some positive consequences, 63% reported a negative consequence, and 47% reported both.  The peacekeepers are exposed to danger caused by the warring parties and often in an unfamiliar climate. This gives rise to different mental health problems, suicide, and substance abuse as shown by the percentage of former peacekeepers with those problems. Having a parent in a mission abroad for an extended period is also stressful to the peacekeepers' families.
  Another viewpoint raises the problem that the peacekeeping may soften the troops and erode their combat ability, as the mission profile of a peacekeeping contingent is totally different from the profile of a unit fighting an all-out war.
caption: Memorial in Kigali, Rwanda to ten Belgian peacekeepers of UNAMIR who were massacred by Hutu paramilitaries in 1994
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