Canadian ex-soldiers who took part in peacekeeping missions in the Balkans in the 1990s are returning for a ‘Battlefield Bike Ride’ tour from Bosnia to Croatia, honouring foreign troops who served there.
Wounded Warriors Canada will stage its ‘Battlefield Bike Ride’ tour from June 6-16, with participants cycling from Bosnia’s capital Sarajevo to southern Medak in Croatia to honour foreign troops who served in the region during the war years.
The organisation, which aims to honour and support sick and injured Canadian Armed Forces members and veterans, says it expects to bring 100 riders on the tour.
Matthew Wocks, Wounded Warriors Canada’s communications director, said that around 40 members of the group served during the conflict and will be returning to the Balkans for the first time since the war.
“Twenty Croatian war veterans will join us at the Bosnia-Croatia border to ride with our team to finish line as a powerful moment of solidarity,” Wocks said in a statement.
He recalled how Canadian peacekeeping troops came under fire during their deployment in Croatia during the conflict.
“Twenty-five years ago, during the Canadian deployment with [UN peacekeeping force] UNPROFOR, the Canadian Army experienced intense combat unseen since the Korean war, including being under heavy fire,” he said.
Canadian soldiers were deployed in the former Yugoslavia with UN and NATO peace operations in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia and Kosovo until 2005, the Wounded Warriors Canada website said.
“They experienced the horrors of civil conflict, ranging from being taken hostage, used as human shields to prevent NATO airstrikes, collecting evidence for war crimes, securing mass graves, and assisting patients in hospitals that had been abandoned,” it added.
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