Is it possible to act globally and help the vulnerable population on the basis of your own bad experience, wars and division? Peacekeepers from BiH who are working in the crisis areas all over the world on the preservation of peace prove that this is possible.
A total of 280 police officers from BiH, including 43 women, participated in peacekeeping missions from Guinea-Bissau, East Timor, through Libya, Afghanistan and Somalia over the past 18 years.
Today, a total of 32 of them are protecting peace in the region of South Sudan, Cyprus and Congo. There is currently 35,000 people in the refugee camp in Juba, the capital of the South Sudan.
The sector of international cooperation of the MoI RS communicates with police officers that are currently in missions around the world on a daily basis. They are especially proud of women’s participation in these missions.
“Of these 9, two are women, police officers, because the UN insists on the engagement of women in peacekeeping missions. We are especially proud on the fact that one part of our employees took a step further and they are now on professional positions within the United Nations, i.e. they started working for the UN on a specified period of time,” said Iskra Stojcinovic, an inspector for international cooperation of the MoI RS.
Team leaders , connection officers, logistics, protectors of human rights, humanitarians, mediators between ethnic parties in conflict. Police officers from BiH are working all these jobs all around the world. Currently, most of them are located in the highest regions of Southern Sudan and Cyprus.
From the Ministry of Security of BiH noted that their lives and health were not endangered at any point.
Although certain missions were considered as high risk when it comes to personal and health protection (i.e. Southern Sudan, Liberia), members of BH police did not have any significant endangerment of their health and safety. Ebola epidemics emerged on several occasions in Liberia, but members of the BH contingent did not suffer from Ebola.
Besides all the possible dangers in their missions, especially in African countries, police officers noted that separation from the family is the largest difficulty. According to UN criteria, those who are working on maintaining global peace have around 80 days of vacation.
(Source: Snezana Mitrovic/N1)
