(MADRID) - Spain held a state funeral Saturday for one of its two soldiers killed when their helicopter crashed in central Bosnia.

Deputy Defence Minister Constantino Mendez attended the ceremonies for Sergeant Joaquin Lopez Moreno at the Colmenar Viejo military base near Madrid and decorated him posthumously with the Military Merit Medal.

The funeral of the second soldier, Lieutenant Santiago Hormigo Ledesma, who was similarly decorated, was being celebrated privately, also on Saturday.

Two German soldiers also died in Thursday's crash of the twin-engine MBB Bo-105 helicopter belonging to the Spanish military, which came down in a mined and forested area north of the central town of Travnik while on a routine flight.

The four belonged to the European peacekeeping force EUFOR, which currently has around 2,200 troops in the former Yugoslav republic charged with military tasks set out in the peace deal that ended the 1992-1995 war.

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