18.07.2017.
Welcome Ceremony for the Participants of Exercise “Saber Guardian 17”
Welcoming ceremony for the members of the Balkan Medical Task Force who, from 11th to 17th July participated in exercise “Saber Guardian 17 – Mascal” in Romania, was organised today at the airport “Nikola Tesla”.
Apart from the members of Military Health Department of the Ministry of Defence, the members of the Armed Forces of Montenegro, Slovenia, Macedonia and Bosnia and Herzegovina arrived at the airport by a transport airplane of the US Armed Forces.
The exercise participants were welcomed by Assistant Minister for Defence Policy, Milan Mojsilović, Ambassador of the Kingdom of Norway in Belgrade, Arne Sannes Bjørnstad, Acting Head of Military Health Department, Colonel Uglješa Jovičić, representatives of US Embassy in Belgrade and the countries participating in the exercise.
Evaluating the participation of the members of the Ministry of Defence as highly successful, Commander of the Balkan Medical Task Force, Lieutenant Colonel dr Žarko Mićović pointed out that according to the adopted concept, Serbia was going to be the Framework Nation in the first three years of the Project.
- The goal of our participation was to achieve interoperability in providing medical assistance in mass casualty situation, and also to achieve the initial operational capability that would be evaluated by NATO experts from Budapest – Lieutenant Colonel Mićović said and clarified the “the Force” consisted of a modular multinational medical unit composed of six nations, established in order to provide assistance in case of natural disasters in the region.
He added that the participation of the members of Ministry of Defence and Serbian Armed Forces was quite noted and that the members demonstrated a high level of expertise and closeness with the colleagues from other armed forces, and that they executed highly successfully all assigned tasks.
Arne Sannes Bjørnstad, the Ambassador of the Kingdom of Norway, which is together with the United States of America, the sponsor nation in the project, congratulated all the participants of the exercise for successfully discharged task whose aim had been to build common capabilities as a response to possible challenges in the region.
The members of the Balkan Medical Task Force had an opportunity in military Air Base “Mihail Kogalniceanu” in Romania to demonstrate the achieved level of competence in providing medical assistance to the population in crisis situations which is reflected in taking care of a great number of the injured in very short period of time.
At one of the most complex exercises when it comes to providing medical care, 60 members of the Balkan Medical Task force, 27 of them being from Serbia, nine from both Bosnia and Herzegovina and Macedonia, eight from Slovenia and 7 from Montenegro, conducted training for numerous activities and procedures of providing assistance to the injured and ill, together with the members of US European Command and Romanian Armed Forces.
