Vera Spahiyska
My name is Vera, I am an EU Monitoring Mission (EUMM) Monitor
from the Field Office Mtskheta, and I came to Georgia in October 2017.
My job is to observe the Administrative Boundary Line
with South Ossetia together with my EU colleagues and to report about the
security situation.
Day after day, we travel dusty roads and enjoy breath-taking
views. We talk to men, women, children and elderly people. We listen to stories
shared by Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) and people who have to go across
Controlled Crossing Points.
I care about the people which I meet every day,
because of that it is often very difficult to do this job.
As a military officer with 30 years’ experience in the
Bulgarian Armed Forces, and having been deployed in several missions in the
past, I thought, when I first arrived, that I could easily handle any obstacle.
Now, I am in my second year with the Administrative Boundary Line team, and I realize
how difficult it is to correct the damages of the war.
Nevertheless, I still believe that my daily efforts to
monitor and report could really result in constructive peace talks on the
negotiating table. I believe in consensus and I wish thousands of families could
reunite again. I like to think that our daily reports will get across to the
international public, so that the voices men and women, young and old,
demanding to go back to their place of birth can be heard.