On 17 September 1997 five members of the OHR and six members of UNMIBH and the political and legal adviser of Christian Schwarz-Schilling, the International Mediator, were killed when the helicopter in which they were travelling crashed in thick fog near Fojnica.
| Leah Melnick | Charles Morpeth | Thomas Reinhardt | Jurgen Schauf | Gerd Wagner |
They had been on their way to attend meetings with local authorities in central and northern Bosnia. These men and women were engaged in the painstaking work of helping piece together a democratic society in Bosnia and Herzegovina. They were professionals who dealt with difficult and detailed tasks, often in challenging circumstances. They played a key role in peace implementation, in areas such as refugee return, police reform, and the development and protection of human rights. Their work brought real change to Bosnia and Herzegovina and directly benefited the citizens of this country.
They made the ultimate sacrifice in the cause of peace.
The twelve who died were Leah Melnick, Charles Morpeth, Thomas Reinhardt, Jurgen Schauf and Gerd Wagner from the OHR, Livio Beccaccio, Andrzej Buler, David Kriskovich, William Nesbitt, Marvin Padgett, Georg Stiebler from UNMIBH, and Peter Backes, political and legal adviser to the International Mediator.
We honour their memory.
