The last remaining Gurkha recipient of the British Victoria Cross died in Nepal on Saturday at the age of 83, a statement from groups representing the elite brigade said on Saturday.
Rambahadur Limbu was a member of the Brigade of Gurkhas, a unit of Nepalese recruited into the British army who earned a reputation for fierce fighting, loyalty and bravery since it first served as part of the Indian army in British-ruled India in 1815.
“He has been a figurehead and exemplar of Gurkha bravery for generations of Gurkha recruits and soldiers,” the Gurkha Brigade Association said in a statement. “His loss will be felt profoundly by all those he has inspired.”
Photo: EPA-EFE
Queen Elizabeth II awarded Limbu the Victoria Cross at Buckingham Palace in 1966 for gallantry during an attack on Indonesian troops the year before, during which he rescued two fellow soldiers.
The rescue occurred during the three-year Konfrontasi conflict sparked by Indonesia’s opposition to the formation of its now-neighbor Malaysia.
“I didn’t think I was going to be shot,” Rambahadur had told The Mirror in an interview in 2014. “All I cared about was rescuing my friends.”
Limbu, by then a captain, served in the Sultan of Brunei’s Army after leaving the British Army in 1985. He lived in the eastern Nepalese city of Damak after retiring in 1992.
British Ambassador to Nepal Nicola Pollitt traveled to Damak in September last year so that Limbu could sign the condolence book for Queen Elizabeth II after her death that month.
At the queen’s funeral in September, 17 of the then 23 living recipients of the Victoria Cross and the George Cross for civilian gallantry were in attendance, including one from New Zealand and four from Australia.
“He signed the book, recalling with pride and sadness his long service for Her Majesty,” Pollitt wrote on Twitter at the time.
Limbu is survived by his wife, Eunimaya, and three children.
Additional reporting by The Guardian
Thousands gathered across New Zealand yesterday to celebrate the signing of the country’s founding document and some called for an end to government policies that critics say erode the rights promised to the indigenous Maori population. As the sun rose on the dawn service at Waitangi where the Treaty of Waitangi was first signed between the British Crown and Maori chiefs in 1840, some community leaders called on the government to honor promises made 185 years ago. The call was repeated at peaceful rallies that drew several hundred people later in the day. “This government is attacking tangata whenua [indigenous people] on all
RIGHTS FEARS: A protester said Beijing would use the embassy to catch and send Hong Kongers to China, while a lawmaker said Chinese agents had threatened Britons Hundreds of demonstrators on Saturday protested at a site earmarked for Beijing’s controversial new embassy in London over human rights and security concerns. The new embassy — if approved by the British government — would be the “biggest Chinese embassy in Europe,” one lawmaker said earlier. Protester Iona Boswell, a 40-year-old social worker, said there was “no need for a mega embassy here” and that she believed it would be used to facilitate the “harassment of dissidents.” China has for several years been trying to relocate its embassy, currently in the British capital’s upmarket Marylebone district, to the sprawling historic site in the
A deluge of disinformation about a virus called hMPV is stoking anti-China sentiment across Asia and spurring unfounded concerns of renewed lockdowns, despite experts dismissing comparisons with the COVID-19 pandemic five years ago. Agence France-Presse’s fact-checkers have debunked a slew of social media posts about the usually non-fatal respiratory disease human metapneumovirus after cases rose in China. Many of these posts claimed that people were dying and that a national emergency had been declared. Garnering tens of thousands of views, some posts recycled old footage from China’s draconian lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic, which originated in the country in late
BACK TO BATTLE: North Korean soldiers have returned to the front lines in Russia’s Kursk region after earlier reports that Moscow had withdrawn them following heavy losses Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Friday pored over a once-classified map of vast deposits of rare earths and other critical minerals as part of a push to appeal to US President Donald Trump’s penchant for a deal. The US president, whose administration is pressing for a rapid end to Ukraine’s war with Russia, on Monday said he wanted Ukraine to supply the US with rare earths and other minerals in return for financially supporting its war effort. “If we are talking about a deal, then let’s do a deal, we are only for it,” Zelenskiy said, emphasizing Ukraine’s need for security guarantees
RSS