A total of 413 Chinese peacekeepers on Tuesday departed Harbin, capital of northeast China’s Heilongjiang Province, for the western African country of Mali for a one-year UN peacekeeping mission.
The peacekeepers, consisting of a guard unit of 210 personnel, a sapper unit of 140 and a medical unit of 63, are the seventh group to be sent to the country.
They will take on a number of tasks, including providing security and medical services, as well as road and airport construction.
The peacekeepers have undergone special training to be better prepared for anti-terrorism and anti-riot operations, as well as the high temperatures in the region.
They have also studied UN peacekeeping regulations, diplomatic protocol and local customs.
The first Chinese contingent to the UN peacekeeping mission in Mali arrived in Bamako on Dec. 2013 to handle medical, engineering and protection duties in Gao.
The mission was set up to stabilise the country after a military coup in 2012 in Mali and a French military intervention against militants in early 2013.
China has the world’s largest military, with about 2.3 million personnel.
Chinese peacekeepers are already working in several missions, including Liberia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Lebanon, Darfur, and South Sudan as well as Haiti.
In the last decade, China has increased its deployment of uniformed personnel to UN peacekeeping twentyfold, sending not only engineers but also military and transportation experts, police and medical staff to missions — mostly in Africa.
413 Chinese peacekeepers depart for Mali
