GENEVA (1 June 2022) - I commend the adoption of a law in the Central African Republic abolishing the death penalty and encourage President Faustin-Archange Touadéra to promulgate it.

Today, we honour the more than one million women and men who have served as United Nations peacekeepers since 1948.

We pay tribute to the nearly 4,200 heroes and heroines who sacrificed their lives in the cause of peace.

Together, we pay tribute to the one million people who were murdered in just 100 days in 1994 – the overwhelming majority Tutsi, but moderate Hutu and others who opposed the genocide too. We honour their memory.