Standby Service and „Starter Exercise” in Sarajevo

The hard wintertime in early February caused serious problems in the Balkans as well. The capital of Bosnia-Herzegovina got covered with more than one meter of snow in just two days, which paralyzed public transport and the whole life of the city. EUFOR was ready to provide assistance in the crisis situation, so the peacekeepers were working for days to help life return to normal in Sarajevo and other regions of the country.

Capt. Sándor Nagy, the officer commanding of the HDF EUFOR contingent infantry company told us that having received an order from the crisis response team – which was set up at HQ EUFOR under the Hungarian EUFOR Chief of Staff Brig.-Gen. Zoltán Gulyás – Lt.-Col. Friedrich Ölböck, the Austrian commander of the multinational battalion (MNBN) placed the maneuver unit on standby. It did not take long until the unit was deployed. The Hungarian soldiers were struggling with the snow for two days. On day one, 40 peacekeepers were removing snow from the ambulance entrance of the Sarajevo hospital, while their Turkish colleagues were working to clear the tramway tracks so that public transport can restart. On the second day, reinforced with the troops of the Austrian company, the Hungarians carried on with clearing the tramway tracks.

In addition, the Hungarian company has been working full steam ahead, training for the full operational capability (FOC) certification exercise. The “starter exercise", as it is called in the HDF EUFOR contingent, enables the MNBN HQ to assess the Hungarian peacekeepers’ skills that they may use anytime in real-life situations over the next sixth months.