Twenty veterans from Bulgaria's first peacekeeping mission - in Cambodia in 1991-1993 - gathered in Sofia on Monday exactly 16 years after the start of the mission in order to honor the memory of the ten Bulgarian soldiers who died in it.

The ceremony took place before the memorial tablet in the National Military History Museum in Sofia, the Bulgarian National Radio reported.

The Deputy Commander of the Bulgarian battalion in Cambodia in the beginning of the 1990s Yanko Yankov said the mission had laid the foundations for Bulgaria's further participation in peacekeeping operations.

Sixteen years after the Cambodian mission, the veterans believe the authorities were not using properly the experience from it in the ensuing missions to Iraq and Afghanistan.

Bulgaria participated in the two UN peacekeeping missions to Cambodia with 850 soldiers. No representatives of the Defense Ministry attended the remembrance ceremony honoring the ten Bulgarians who died during the mission.

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