Plans are being made for a memorial to remember a North East soldier shot dead while serving in Bosnia almost three decades ago.

Private Shaun Taylor, from Thornaby, was just 20 when he was killed in Bosnia in June 1994.

Almost 28 years since his death, efforts are being made to create a memorial for Pte Taylor and five other men killed while serving in the town of Gorazde between April 1994 and September 1995.

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Pte Taylor, who has been in the Army for 18 months, served with The Duke of Wellington’s Regiment and was deployed in Gorazde as part of the British forces there to prevent a genocide similar to what happened in the town of Srebrenica.

The Northern Echo: Private Shaun Taylor, from Thornaby, was killed in Bosnia in 1994Private Shaun Taylor, from Thornaby, was killed in Bosnia in 1994

He was the sixth British soldier to be killed as part of Operation Grapple in Bosnia. He had been in an observation post one kilometre north east of Gorazde when he was hit by a single bullet from a sniper’s rifle- apparently fired from a Serb position up to two kilometres away.

Now dozens of his old comrades are raising funds for the memorial, as well as pay for the refurbishment of a classroom at a school in Gorazde, which will be named in Pte Taylor’s honour.

John Frear, who was serving commander of his regiment, said: “We came to the realisation that there was nothing to commemorate Shaun and the five other soldiers who died there.

“There is a memorial to the soldiers who served there and that has been looked after by school children over the years.”

He added: “The likelihood is a lot of those children would not have existed if it had become another Srebrenica.”

The Northern Echo: Private Shaun Taylor, from Thornaby Private Shaun Taylor, from Thornaby

British forces were in the town to maintain it as a UN safe place, put in place to prevent a massacre similar to one in July 1995, when 8,000 Muslim men and boys were killed in Srebrenica by Bosnian Serbs.

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The Duke of Wellington’s Regiment, The Special Air Service Regiment, The Royal Gloucester, Berkshire and Wiltshire Regiment and The Royal Welsh Fusiliers are working together to raise £75,000 for a British Army Memorial Park.

The memorial is set to be unveiled in September.

To find out more about the fundraising and to donate visit: https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/dukesbosnianmemorialcampaign  

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