Fifteen UN peacekeepers were killed in the Democratic Republic of Congo in the worst ever attack on a UN peace mission anywhere in the world. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said that it was an attack not just on the individuals, but on what the UN and its peacekeeping operations stand for.

The UN said the peacekeepers were attacked by suspected rebels of the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) in North Kivu province. The group is described as Islamist and apparently it claims allegiance to Daesh (the self-proclaimed IS). But as with most of the groups in this area of mass poverty, perpetual instability and vast mineral resources, motivations for the attack can be numerous.

It’s hard to find a country on the map that has had so many problems in its history. The DR Congo suffered through one of the most brutal colonial reigns ever known to mankind. It then went through decades of corrupt dictatorship. At the same time came two civil wars that killed millions of people, mostly from hunger and disease.

Several armed militias are fighting for control of mineral-rich lands in North Kivu and often clash with Congolese troops and UN peacekeepers. The conflict has forced 1.7 million people in DR Congo to flee their homes this year alone, a scale that aid agencies say outpaces Syria, Yemen and Iraq.

To top it off, after 11 years in power, President Joseph Kabila has become entrenched in his post, refusing to step down despite completing the two terms in office allowed under the constitution. Anger has grown as presidential elections originally set for late last year have been repeatedly delayed. Though elections are promised next year hardly anybody believes they will be held.

The DRC is thus facing a grave humanitarian emergency, economic deterioration and worsening political instability. The crisis has led to a breakdown in law and order, with a series of massive prison breaks and growing conflict between militias across the south and east of the country that have killed thousands and displaced millions.

In the middle of the mayhem sits the UN peacekeeping mission in the DR Congo aimed at stabilizing a number of the armed groups. It’s a tall order. While the mission, MONUSCO, is the largest of the world’s 15 UN peacekeeping missions and the most expensive in the world, it is also outnumbered, with 22,000 troops in a country two-thirds the size of Western Europe. Earlier this year the UN revealed a plan to cut the number of peacekeepers there to just 3,000 as a result of the US seeking to reduce the UN peacekeeping budget. MONUSCO has also faced violent demonstrations by civilians who accuse it of being ineffective.

That’s the thanks MONUSCO gets after it helped carry out Congo’s first free and fair elections in 46 years, after suffering 93 fatalities of military, police and civilian personnel - before Friday’s massacre – at the hands of a proliferation of warlords and militias who have a ruthless disregard for human life, and after shouldering at least part of the Herculean task of managing a conflict that has continued to displace hundreds of thousands of people.

In its 11 years of service, MONUSCO has seen many rebel groups come and go, at times invading all the way up to the regional capital, Goma. It has seen immeasurable cruelty and greed as a result of the country’s vast mineral resources that has drawn in a number of neighboring countries. This is a job for Superman.

But the people who make up MONUSCO are not supermen. They are brave men and women who put their lives on the line every day to protect civilians in the service of world peace. It’s an enormous sacrifice that does not get the attention it deserves, either from the world or the citizens MONUSCO has pledged to protect.