Text and photo: Major Michael Christiansen, SPAO DATG

Citizens from EU and NATO countries do not feel safe and several have already left the island. Diplomats on the island have asked the international community to help carry the remaining EU and NATO citizens into safety. Through NATO this task has been given to a naval unit – Danish Task Group – which together with ships from several countries are conducting an exercise in the waters around Bonnie Island.

In connection with the evacuation Danish Task Group is supported by units from the Army who already have arrived on Bonnie Island. It is a recce battalion from the Royal Hussars who belong to the 1. Brigade with headquartes in Haderslev.

The battalion’s task is to find the citizens who must be evacuated and bring them safely from whereever they are to a point of evacuation close to the coast. Here Danish Task Group takes over and brings the evacuated to ships off the coast. Either by rubber dinghys or by helicopters. Then they are sailed to a safe place. During this exercise this will be Rønne where Naval District Bornhom will provide transportation home.

In total 300 role-players participate in the exercise. Amongst them are e.g. ill and injured who need treatment by medical personnel at the gathering point, where everybody also can get something to eat. By tradition some persons show up who are not entitled to be evacuated. Therefore the Military Police toghether with representatives from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs establish a check point where the evacuated are registered.

The recce battalion is a good unit for  this type of task. It is light, very  mobile and can be run independently,  Torben Bertel Jepsen explaines.

Captain Torben Bertel Jepsen, operations officer at 1. Brigade, has been flown to the command ship THETIS so that he can maintain contact between the Army units and Dansh Task Group by HF- and UHF-radios.

– The Army serves as the eyes of Danish Task Group on the island. We have pointed out evacuation points and the routes that the evacuated must follow. We plan to pick up the citizens at three places on Wednesday morning and finish the evacuation just after noon, says Torben Bertel Jepsen.

– The recce battalion is a good unit for this type of task. It is light, very mobile and can be run independently.

The battalion consits of a staff company and to light recce squadrons equipped with armoured vehicles of the type Mercedes GD and Eagle.