Unarmed Service

The exercise was held in a crisis zone inhabited by fictitious ethnic groups, where the parties were incapable of peaceful coexistence, and so the state requested assistance from the UN.

During the exercise, the training audience had to pass through four stations while solving simulated situations. Because it is a training exercise, the possibility of making mistakes is consciously built into the system: the objective is to enable the soldiers to hone their skills in a safe environment by learning from their mistaken decisions. The trainers evaluated their performance after the completion of each task, which provided them with immediate feedback. Among other things, they manned an observation post, gathered information from the local populace, attempted to cross legal and illegal checkpoints and, while being harassed by the local media, they were also tasked with administering first aid to a person who had been seriously injured in a mine blast.

“One objective of the course is to prepare the soldiers for executing unarmed tasks in unarmed missions” – emphasized Lieutenant Colonel Szabolcs Bakk. The officer in charge of the course added that this presents a serious challenge to the personnel, as they have always moved under arms during their service so far.

“No one wants a war, no one wants a conflict anywhere around the world. So our duty here as military observers serving under the umbrella of the United Nations is to make sure that the environment is secure and safe for the people around us because every person, every human being has the right to live in peace” – told us Major Mohamed Salem, a soldier of the Egyptian Armed Forces in answer to a question as to what has motivated him to enroll on the course.

Fifteen of the 21 participants of the three-week course that started on September 28 came from abroad: in addition to students delegated from Albania, Egypt, North Macedonia, France, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Poland and Türkiye, six Hungarian soldiers are also participating in the course.

The main tasks of unarmed UN observers are to verify compliance with peace agreements and gather credible information. In order to show their peaceful intentions, they don’t carry weapons. Their unarmedness is a guarantee to opposing parties that they won’t pose a military threat. This trust is indispensable for their being able to promote peace safely as neutral mediators.