Belize - Military Personnel

According to the World Bank, armed forces personnel are active duty military personnel, including paramilitary forces if the training, organization, equipment, and control suggest they may be used to support or replace regular military forces.

Recruits undergo all basic military training such as drill, Signals, Map Reading/Navigation, Field craft, Skill At Arms, First Aid, Law of Arm Conflict, Rules of Engagement, Crowd Control, Unarmed Combat, Tactics and General Knowledge.

Belize’s national army, the Belize Defence Force, grew by eighty to over 1,500 men and women after a full passing out ceremony took place on 31 October 2016 in Price Barracks, Ladyville. While according to Minister of National Security John Saldivar, more than one thousand 3 hundred new law enforcement personnel have been appointed since 2012 when he took office, just 427 of these are soldiers. In 2015 160 soldiers were added in two intakes.

The recruits started their rigorous training in October 2015, in disciplines ranging from: marksmanship, combat, scouting and survival skills to prepare them for the demanding life of a soldier.

The Belize Defense Force numbers around 1,000 and by 2015 was stretched thin with a third of its soldiers deployed to support the Belize Police Force in fighting crime throughout the country, including a rising narco trafficking problem. It was additionally tasked to run the prison camp for young gang members in the Mountain Pine Ridge. Under that program, young criminals between the ages of 14 and 18 will be removed from urban areas and transported to the BDF facility in the Cayo District. There they will undergo forced labor and reeducation in sentences ranging up to two years.