During the Bosnian War (1992-1995) the World learned about the United Nations blue helmets contingents deployed in the battle fields.
Not many people knew about the small branch of United Nations Military Observers (UNMO) that were constantly travelling unarmed, across the confrontation lines, counting and reporting the amount of shells fired, the exchange of corpses and prisoners of war, the suffering of the civilian population , etc. Those UNMO small teams had to live out of the UN contingents, among the local population, buy the food they bought, drink the water they ate and suffer the dangerous they suffered. That was a hard and hazardous job, normally executed in small teams of less than 10 officers and two local interpreters. It was a risky and daring task, but it was of essence for the UN to understand what was going on beyond the barbed wire of the international military compounds.
However, there was an even smaller group of UNMO officers, only a few people knew about, that were monitoring electronically the No Fly Zone over Bosnia. They were the UNMO Airfield Monitors deployed in (Croatia – Zagreb) Pleso and (Yugoslavia – Belgrade) Surcin radar sites.
They were observing and reporting the war in its third dimension – the airspace.
Although much less dangerous, regarding exposure to the battle environment, those tasks were particularly intense and demanding in order to have a 24 hours – 7 days per week – presence at the radar site, with a team of six.
And when they were not at the radar, they had to do visual inspections of the helicopters authorized to execute medical evacuations (MEDEVAC) into/from Bosnia.
During the first semester of 1995 (the last year of war) the amount of potential violations of the No Fly Zone was considerable, and the reports followed their path up the chain of command, all the way to the UN Security Council in New York. As a result, Yugoslavia suffered seven extra months of UN sanctions. At the radar Team, we felt only but sorry for the Yugoslav population, that had already suffered enough under the regime of Milosevic.
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