Defence awards two Crosses of Military Merit with red decoration and two with blue decoration to soldiers from the Mali mission

Official photograph of soldier D. Gómez

Official photograph of soldier R. Ríos

The Ministry of Defence has awarded two Military Merit Crosses with a red decoration and two Military Merit Crosses with a blue decoration to the four soldiers who stopped the assault on the Spanish base in Koulikoro, Mali.

Richard Ríos and Daniel Gómez, soldiers from the EU Training Mission Mali Protection Forces, were awarded the Military Merit Cross with red decoration for their behaviour in the operation which required the use of armed force against a terrorist attack which occurred on the 24th of February of this year.

The Spanish soldiers had to face an attack which started at three o’clock in the morning. Upon arriving at the vicinity of the Centre, the occupants of one of the vehicles disembarked and began to shoot from near to one of the secondary access doors. Then, the vehicles headed for the main door. The Spanish soldiers who were on duty, as well as the Malian soldiers, repelled the first of the vehicles, whilst the second, upon seeing that the first could not penetrate the encampment, set off an explosion in the vicinity of the centre’s gate, without causing any major damage. No one was killed, but two Malian soldiers were injured and quickly attended to by the medical services. The soldiers’ excellent performance and ability to keep calm prevented a massacre from occurring.

With blue decoration

For the same performance, Staff Sergeant Óscar Néstar, chief of the first Explosive Deactivation Team (which intervened in the incident zone after the explosion) and First Sergeant Pedro Varela (who was working as an operator) were awarded the Military Merit Cross with blue distinction. Both men were responsible for the later process of deactivating the devices, thereby securing the zone.