Coronavirus pandemic poses big challenges for UN peacekeeping operations

UN peacekeepers from Morocco carry out a patrol in the DR Congo in March 2020

With 110,000 peacekeepers deployed in more than a dozen countries around a world now ravaged by the coronavirus, the United Nations faces twin challenges: keeping those soldiers safe and, more importantly, persuading governments not to bring them home.

One fear is that of a "stampede effect," in the words of one diplomat. Countries that have contributed peacekeepers "might have a legitimate concern to the effect of 'I am not staying here' or 'I am not leaving my men here because if they get infected, they will not be well taken care of,'" the diplomat told AFP.