‘A gut-wrenching assault course’

THE UNITED Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP) yesterday held the second of its twice-yearly Military Skills competition, with participants tackling a series of different disciplines in the UN’s Protected Area at the site of the old Nicosia airport.

Captain Stefan Zamanovic told the Cyprus Mail that, “ten teams, made up of six members, including one woman, will tackle a log run, a map reading competition, a shooting test and an incident reaction measurement. The final part will be the most difficult and will see the participants take on a gut-wrenching assault course.”

The Military Skills competition has been taking place every May and November for over 30 years.

According to UNFICYP’s website, “peacekeepers in a mission focus on the skills required in their particular operation. But they must also prepare for future missions in a different environment. For this reason, the Military Skills competition is held twice a year to test the military abilities of each unit within the Force. With dedication and determination, the teams practice weeks in advance and there is a sense of pride and achievement on the day. It is a credit to them all that, even though they come from different armies and from many nations, their disciplined training enables them to compete, in mixed teams, in a spirit of goodwill and competitiveness.”

Forty-two years ago, UNFICYP was established with a three-month mandate in response to the outbreak of vicious inter-communal fighting on the island. By June 1964, there were 6,500 UN troops in Cyprus.

They’re still here, but today’s UNFICYP is much smaller, made up of 860 peacekeepers. It is the longest serving peacekeeping mission in the world.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.