Four Italians Killed as EU Force Helicopter Crashes in Bosnia

Four Italian nationals were killed when a helicopter serving the European Union's military force in Bosnia crashed, Al Jazeera reported. The broadcaster said EUFOR, the EU mission in the country, confirmed the loss of a CH-47 Chinook. The report did not give the location of the crash, the number of people on board, or a suspected cause.

EUFOR is the union's military operation in Bosnia and Herzegovina, known as Operation Althea, which Brussels has maintained since it took over from the NATO-led force in 2004. Italy has been a steady supplier of personnel to multinational forces in the western Balkans for three decades, and Italian officers have served inside the staff structures of both the EU and NATO missions there.

A crash of this kind changes the register of a defence debate. A mission discussed in Brussels as a line in a budget becomes, in Rome, a question about the aircraft Italian personnel are asked to fly in and the chain of command that clears them for flight. The international coverage reviewed had established neither.