Document details

Last Station Before Hell: United Nations Peacekeepers

In: The Routledge Companion to Media and Humanitarian Action
Robin Andersen; Robin Purnaka L. de Silva (eds.)
London: Routledge (2017), pp. 428-434

ISBN 97803678779659 (pbk); 9781315538129 (ebook)

Signature commbox: 10-Development-E 2017

"The article discusses the film 'Last Station Before Hell' by Pierre-Olivier François. United Nations' Peacekeepers known as the Blue Helmets, are often the subject of criticism and negative press reports. Most notably they have been blamed for transmitting cholera to the victims of the earthquake that struck the island nation of Haiti in 2010. The UN reluctantly admitted its role in bringing the Peacekeepers who brought the disease to the island, and has finally agreed to compensate the people of Haiti. Based on his experience at the United Nations in New York as a press attaché in charge of the General Assembly and the Security Council, filmmaker Pierre-Olivier François was asked to make a film about the United Nations peacekeeping forces for the seventieth anniversary of the world body. In this chapter, François discusses the making of the documentary, and he details the challenges posed by the mostly negative media frames applied to UN Peacekeepers." (Introduction to part 7, page 381)