Page 72 - Mercian Eagle Year of 2023

30 Year Anniversary of
Bosnia & Herzegovina
The 1st Battalion The 22nd (Cheshire) Regiment deployed to Bosnia & Herzegovina (BiH) between October 1992 and May 1993. 1 CHESHIRE were intimately supported by 144 officers & men of The Royal Irish, alongside the Battalions REME LAD, A Squadron 9/12 Lancers, the RAMC and a whole host of supporting arms. With no clear remit or political direction, the Regiment provided support where possible in a country consumed by a bitter civil war.
Every soldier of the 1 CHESHIRE Battle Group has a shared memory. As a member of A Company my experiences were specific to our own operating area
and therein conditions. With elements of Battalion HQ as far apart as Tomislavgrad and Tuzla, over 220km by the shortest
route, it is hard to encapsulate a single
set of experiences. There is no doubt that every person who served over that period was changed by the tour. I cannot hope to describe the conditions surrounding the fighting in Gorni Vakuf for B Company, the evacuation into Tuzla from Srebrenica or
the line crossings into Serb held territory
for C Company, the fighting in & around Sarejevo or any number of tasks for HQ or Support Company, or all 4-man liaison team, 8 man section and upward actions that happened all over our area of operations.
However, 2023, marked the 30-
year anniversary of a particular event representative in some ways, of the fighting that the Regiment was surrounded by. During heavy fighting in the Lasva Valley area of BiH in April 1993 the Officers and Men of A Company, along with supporting troops of Battalion HQ 1 CHESHIRE,
5 Platoon B Company, 3 Troop 9/12 Lancers & attached REME and RAMC teams were involved in the aftermath of events that
saw 121 civilian inhabitants of the village
of Ahmici massacred. The massacre was the coordinated murder and destruction
of the Muslim population and homes of
the village by Croatian paramilitaries. It is difficult to put into words that convey the tragedy of that week and those days that
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