Before joining UNRWA , Ging worked in a variety of missions in the Balkans , Africa and the Middle East . In the Balkans , he served as chief of staff of the Institution Building Pillar within the UN Mission in Kosovo ( UNMIK ) . Prior to that , he worked for 8 years as chief of staff in the mission of the Organization for Security Cooperation in Europe ( OSCE ) in Bosnia and Herzegovina . During and after the Rwandan genocide ( 1994 – 1996 ) , Ging served as regional field director with the Irish NGO GOAL . According to colleagues who worked with him at the time , he took on difficult jobs like arranging the mass burial of 40,000 refugees who died when cholera swept through their camp . In the period 1989 – 1994 , Ging completed three tours of duty as a United Nations peacekeeper with UNIFIL in South Lebanon . He began his career in the Irish Defense Forces in 1983 , where he served as a commissioned officer
Rwandan genocide
Rwandan genocide
John Ging