Serbs in the Roles as UN Peacekeeper

There are currently 19 Serbian soldiers participating in UN peacekeeping activities and missions around the world, according to Danas Daily.

There are 13 officers from the Defense Ministry, and 6 officers from the Interior Ministry currently working in missions in the Congo, Liberia and the Ivory Coast, while a another five officers could soon be sent on a mission to Haiti, pending UN approval, according to the Interior Ministry.

Serbian police working on these missions are exclusively taken on a volunteer basis, Interior Ministry officials told Danas Daily, adding that they do not participate in EU or other UN military missions. The source also stated that most of the police officers from Serbia were working as instructors.

As far as the Serbian soldiers’ expertise are concerned, there are two doctors and four medical technicians working in the Congo mission as part of a medical team specializing in aerial evacuations.

In Liberia, there are currently four officers working as military observers, together with six officials from the Interior Ministry. The mission in that country was launched in 2003.

There are another three officers working as military observers in the mission to the Ivory Coast that has been active since 2004.

The then Yugoslav National Army’s largest ever contingent was dispatched after the Arab- Israeli war which ended in 1956. In the period up until 1967, some 15,000 JNA soldiers were stationed on the Sinai Peninsula that separates Egypt and Israel.

Smaller JNA contingents worked with the UN in the Congo in 1961, and in Yemen in 1963. The JNA’s last mission before the collapse of the former Yugoslavia was to Angola in 1991