Today, in the “Ilinden” barracks in Skopje, the President Stevo Pendarovski, the Minister of Defence, Slavjanka Petrovska, the ambassador of the Republic of Türkiye in North Macedonia, Mr. Hasan Mehmet Sekizçok and Chief of the General Staff Lieutenant General Vasko Gjurchinovski welcomed and thanked the Army Search and Rescue Team for their engagement.
At the reception, the attendees first observed a one-minute silence in honor of the lost lives and the huge number of residents from allied Turkiye, who lost their homes in the catastrophic earthquakes.
Ambassador Sekizqok, Minister Petrovska and President Pendarovski addressed the army members, who tried to help in every possible way, and who all these days carried our hope that during the search, as many human lives as possible would be saved.
The ambassador of the Republic of Turkiye in North Macedonia, Mr. Hasan Mehmet Sekizçok, thanking for the engagement, emphasized “Brave sons and daughters of the Macedonian army, you returned to the country not long ago, but your sacrifice and great solidarity is already engraved deep in the memory of the Turkish people, a nation that will remember forever.”
“Thank you for your sacrifice and for showing that you are always ready to serve your people, but also to help your friends when they are in need,” said Petrovska to the members of the Special Force Battalion.
President Stevo Pendarovski thanked the soldiers for their courage, professionalism and consistent execution of the tasks in searching, finding and rescuing the victims and said that our Army was among the first five that arrived on the spot, 24 hours after the earthquake.
On February 6, after the series of strong earthquakes that hit the southeastern parts of Turkiye, immediately after the information about this apocalyptic tragedy, on a proposal of the Army and the Ministry of Defense, the Government approved the deployment of an Army search and rescue team, composed of 22 members of the Special Forces Battalion, two service dog handlers, with two dogs from the Canine Training Center.
The very next day, a team of Army personnel trained in search and rescue was sent to the humanitarian operation in Karanmanmarash, one of the areas most affected by the catastrophic earthquakes, ready to help without hesitation, as it has done many times in our homeland.
Our members, supported by the excellent coordination and help from the Embassy of Turkiye, arrived in the evening on the same day ready to start the search. On February 9, they were joined by the second Army team consisting of 36 soldiers.
During the engagement, our members performed their tasks professionally, using their maximum in finding the victims and trying in any possible way to find survivors in the ruins, while they experienced the greatest joy by participating in the successful extraction and saving of the life of a five-year-old child.
Our Army teams, together with the people from the Republic of North Macedonia, as part of the mobilized international community, despite the aggravating circumstances, showed that only with training, determination, unity and solidarity can such disasters be overcome.
