The World Humanitarian Day
On 11 December 2008, the United Nations General Assembly made history when it adopted the Swedish sponsored GA Resolution A/63/L.49 on the Strengthening of the Coordination of Emergency Assistance of the United Nations, that amongst other important humanitarian decisions, decided to designate 19 August as the World Humanitarian Day (WHD). The Resolution gives for the first time, a special recognition to all humanitarian and United Nations and associated personnel who have worked in the promotion of the humanitarian cause and those who have lost their lives in the cause of duty and urges all Member States, entities of the United Nations within existing resources, as well as the other International Organizations and Non-Governmental Organizations to observe it annually in an appropriate way. It marks the day on which the then Special Representative of the Secretary-General to Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello and his 21 colleagues tragically made the ultimate sacrifices in the cause of duty following the bombing of the UN Headquarters in Baghdad.
Read more about this topic: Canal Hotel Bombing
Famous quotes containing the words world, humanitarian and/or day:
“To him who looks upon the world rationally, the world in its turn presents a rational aspect. The relation is mutual.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)
“We have to ask ourselves whether medicine is to remain a humanitarian and respected profession or a new but depersonalized science in the service of prolonging life rather than diminishing human suffering.”
—Elisabeth Kübler-Ross (b. 1926)
“On the first day of a revolution he is a treasure; on the second he ought to be shot.”
—Anonymous. Quoted in Benét’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, third edition (1987)