Monument to fallen Estonian soldiers to be brought from Afghanistan to Paldiski

Photo: Riigikogu riigikaitsekomisjon

A roundtable organized by the parliamentary National Defense Committee supported a proposal to bring a monument to Estonian soldiers killed in Afghanistan to Estonia after the end of the mission and put it up at the base of the Scouts Battalion in Paldiski.

Representatives of the Defense Ministry, defense forces and the Estonian Reserve Officers Association gathered at the invitation of the committee to discuss the future location of the monument that currently stands at Camp Bastion.

Committee chair Mati Raidma told BNS the participants backed the proposal to bring the memorial to Paldiski where the Scouts Battalion is based. The monument has been built in a way that allows it to be taken away when Estonian units leave Afghanistan.

Raidma added that it is planned to put up the monument in a "not so closed territory," that is, near the military compound where it would be accessible to the public. "It's a part of the unit's history," he stated.

The monument has the shape of a pyramid with a cross on top and the names of the servicemen killed in the line of duty inscribed on it. The British and the Danes have erected similar monuments to their fallen at Camp Bastion which also will be brought away upon the end of the mission.

The construction of the monument was initiated in 2010 by the Reserve Officers Association and the National Defense Committee who also collected donations for it.

Since the deployment of the first Estonian military unit to Afghanistan in 2003 nine servicemen have been killed in that country.