Ready for Everything
Szöveg: Capt. Gergő Kurucz | 2014. július 16. 6:24On June 22, riots broke out on the bridge “Austerlitz” at Mitrovica, Kosovo, in the area of responsibility of the joint Portuguese–Hungarian KFOR Tactical Reserve Maneuver Battalion (KTM). The bridge separates the Serb population living on its northern side from the Albanian residents of the southern side.
Some days before the event, members of the local Serb minority had removed the cordons formed on the bridge, and then placed there debris and boxes with thujas, creating a “Peace-garden". The Albanian residents expressed dislike, responding to the event with a demonstration.
In the evening of June 22, The KFOR Tactical Reserve Maneuver Battalion was called out to the scene, where the local police had already been performing crowd riot control (CRC) tasks. During the demonstration, no KFOR forces were deployed, but the units of the Kosovo Police (KP) and the international EULEX suffered substantial material damage and 17 light casualties.
On June 28 the Serb people of the country traveled to a monument erected in memory of the Battle of Kosovo on Kosovo Polje. Needless to say, the traditional march has never been free of atrocities, so in this year too, disturbances were expected to occur again. For this reason, in support of the local police, the KFOR Headquarters placed the KTM on standby and deployed it to a site near Pristina.
The KTM battalion occupied its designated area on June 28 in the early morning hours and prepared for immediate action to support or relieve local law enforcement units. Fortunately, during the day all atrocities proved to be manageable by the Kosovo Police, so the KTM battalion returned to Camp Slim Lines in the late evening hours.
Photo: Cpl. Krisztián Baksics
