UN Under-Secretary-General Ameerah Haq is resigning from her position as head of the Department of Field Support of UN Peacekeeping Mission on health grounds.
Haq who joined the UN in 1976 has held the above position since 2012.
In a statement on Tuesday, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon said Ameerah Haq is stepping down as the UN undersecretary-general in charge of providing logistics and support for more than 100,000 UN peacekeepers deployed around the world.
Ban Ki-Moon has expressed tremendous gratitude to Haq “for her outstanding service” during a 38-year UN career which has included a wide range of development, humanitarian and peacekeeping roles from East Timor to Sudan, Afghanistan, Malaysia and Laos.
According to the Associated Press, Ban did not name a replacement, and neither he nor his UN spokesman gave a reason for Haq's sudden departure.
Ameerah Haq, a seasoned and skilled negotiator as well as consensus-builder, became the highest-ranking Bangladeshi official at the United Nations following her appointment as an Under-Secretary-General for the Department of Field Support on June 11, 2012.
She brought to the position extensive management and operational experience, supporting complex mission deployments and transition activities, including crisis management.
Diplomatic sources said Ameerah Haq as Head of the Department of Field Support brought tremendous success to her role as she brought discipline, cost management and ensured smooth provision of logistics and support to the 119,541 personnel serving in 17 UN Peacekeeping Operations around the world.
Haq's nephew Kazi Nabil Ahmed MP told The Daily Star yesterday she is stepping down from the UN job 'basically and purely' on health grounds.
Ruling out any speculations, Kazi Nabil Ahmed said Ameerah Haq's resignation was absolutely in consultation with the UN Secretary General. She had been discharging her UN assignment on contract.
Narrating her health condition, Ahmed said his maternal aunt had undergone a bypass surgery on her heart in 1997 and since then has had to go for further surgery twice more.
She had wished to resign last year as her health was not permitting her to take too much pressure and stress. However she continued for about a year at the request of the UN Chief, Nabil added.
UN CAREER
In 2009, Ameerah Haq was the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Timor-Leste and Head of the United Nations Integrated Mission in Timor-Leste (UNMIT).  
She had previously held the positions of Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-General as well as United Nations Resident Coordinator and Humanitarian Coordinator for Sudan and before that served as Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-General and United Nations Resident Coordinator and Humanitarian Coordinator for Afghanistan.  
She was formerly Deputy Assistant Administrator and Deputy Director, Bureau of Crisis Prevention & Recovery, at United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Headquarters in New York.  
She served as the United Nations Resident Coordinator and UNDP Resident Representative in Malaysia from 1994 to 1997 and in the same capacity in Laos from 1991 to 1994.
Ameerah Haq also worked in the Regional Bureau for Asia and the Pacific at UNDP Headquarters in various capacities from 1980-1990, which included responsibilities for aid coordination mechanisms, and as Desk Officer for Thailand, Myanmar and Bhutan.
She also had an assignment with the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) from 1985 to 1987. She started her career in 1976 as a Junior Professional Officer in Jakarta, Indonesia and was transferred to Afghanistan as Assistant Resident Representative in 1978.
Ameerah Haq has had 38 years of United Nations career service (19 in the field and 18 at headquarters) and is a seasoned and skilled negotiator as well as consensus-builder.  
She holds master's degrees in community organization and planning and in business administration from Columbia University and New York University, respectively. She completed her Bachelor of Arts at Western College in Oxford, Ohio.
She has two children.