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OK, the Katanga secession crisis of 1960-63 was the most intense conflict which the UN became involved in prior to the 1990s- with 20,000-odd ONUC peacekeepers (esp from India, Ethiopia, Ghana, Ireland & Sweden), acting to implement their mandate to preserve the Congo's territorial integrity, engaging in actual combat against European mercenaries who were leading local Katangese gendarmes. The ONUC troops even suffered some humiliating reverses at the hands of these mercs, such as the strafing of UN columns by a single Belgian mercenary-piloted Fouga Magister, & the encirclement & surrender of a coy of Irish soldiers at Jadotville (Sept 1961).

Now, in more contemporary conflicts where UN peacekeepers served- esp Africa, but also the Balkans- there were reports or rumours of other mercenaries serving 1 side or another- such as Liberians, Burkinabes, South Africans & Ukrainians in Sierra Leone, or Serbs, Croats (allegedly veterans from ethnic cleansing campaigns in the FY), Ukrainians & North Koreans in the DRC- not to mention the French mercs in Rwanda during the 1994 genocide, or the foreign 'volunteers' on all sides in Bosnia. Now, WI there'd again been instances in these contemporary conflicts of Blue Helmets ending up engaging in combat against mercs a la Katanga ?
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