The Bosnia Marathon

In March 2015, Maurice Evlyn-Bufton and several of his team at Armstrong Wolfe undertook a marathon in Eastern Bosnia to raise funds for an English teaching Centre at Gorazde Primary School. Through sponsorship by friends and family, they raised £5,000.

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The team started in the snow-covered Bosnian mountains at 3,500 ft, worked their way down the valley then into the town of Gorazde and crossed the finish line at Gorazde Primary School, where the children were waiting for them.

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This challenge echoes the past. On Christmas Day 1994 Maurice had arranged, through his Commanding Officer, a temporary cessation of hostilities to allow him to run a marathon from the bridge over the River Drina at the Serbian town of Višegrad to the hospital of the Bosnian town and protective enclave of Goražde, some twenty six miles up the valley. This was to raise money for the charity ‘Sight Savers’, a charity that Maurice had already ran six marathons for in the past. This seventh marathon was to raise funds to give sight back to three hundred children in line with the three hundredth anniversary of his regiment. 

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Whilst this cessation of hostilities had been agreed, Maurice was stopped and held with the barrel of a Serbian AK47 to his forehead for some time, all but three miles from the marathon’s end.  What was described by the Serbian commander as ‘an unfortunate misunderstanding’ left Maurice a twenty year personal objective, to return to the town and run and complete this marathon.