The national flag has been lowered in the camp of the Hungarian Defence Forces Provincial Reconstruction Team and an official farewell ceremony has been held in Mazar-e Sharif. The soldiers of the last PRT rotation are going to return home from Afghanistan this week.

According to a press release of the Ministry of Defence (MoD), the official farewell ceremony of the last rotation of the Hungarian PRT took place in the presence of Minister of Defence Csaba Hende on Tuesday, March 26 in Mazar-e Sharif. During the event, Col. Antal Sipos, the commander of the 13th rotation of the PRT handed over to the Minister of Defence the national flag lowered in the camp of the PRT.

In his speech, Minister Hende remembered the seven Hungarian service personnel who had died in the line of duty. “They made the supreme sacrifice by giving their lives while carrying out the mission” – the MoD wrote in its press release.

Col. Antal Sipos, the commander of the contingent summed up the activities of the last six months. Over the 183 days of its deployment, the last PRT rotation has implemented more than 660 projects in Baghlan Province. All in all, in the last six and a half years the educational programs of the PRT involved around 40-50 thousand children of school age. The improving conditions of the education infrastructure concerned 15 per cent of the children of school age in the province, the Ministry of Defence wrote. Hungary has been running a Provincial Reconstruction Team in Baghlan Province, Northern Afghanistan since October 2006. According to the MoD press release, more than 2,500 Hungarian troops served with the PRT contingent between October 2006 and March 2013. Some of them have completed three or four tours of duty here.

(MTI)