CRC Training in Cyprus

They executed it recently at a former Slovak observation post, which is used as a venue for such training events these days.

Crowd and riot control (CRC) is one of the key phases of the in-theatre training held every six months. Its execution crucially involves both individual skills and teamwork, as the forces co-deployed in Sector 4 include Slovak, Hungarian, Ukrainian and Serb troops. Therefore, they need to be drilled in every subtask in the interest of standardized execution.

The multinational forces give a platoon-level “Force" service every three weeks.

In this period, they need to use the skills they acquired during the in-theatre training on possible deployments in real-world situations, even they co-deploy with troops from other sectors.

Of course, like in any learning process, CRC skills need to be learned step by step, which creates a solid basis for effective teamwork. The present practice started with movement drills – at this stage, the soldiers had to execute their tasks without the opposing force. In the next phase, the “angry crowd" appeared and imitated a couple of situations which have already occurred in the history of the peacekeeping mission.

Under the training scenario, the prescribed “attempt to reach verbal agreement" failed, so the crowd became aggressive and violent.

At this point, the peacekeepers started to perform the crowd and riot control.

Lt.-Col. Jaroslav Bitala, the commander of Sector 4 and Lt.-Col. Imre Kovács, deputy commander were also present at the training event. In their assessment, the joint task was executed successfully.

Photo: Capt. Mónika Petrics