A team of 257 Chinese soldiers left Beijing on Monday for a 12 month UN peacekeeping mission in Liberia.
An official report from Beijing says that they are the first team of the 18th batch of Chinese peacekeepers sent on tour since 2003, when China joined the peacekeeping mission in Liberia under the UN Security Council’s Resolution 1509.
It says that the second team is scheduled to set off on Sept. 17.
The report said the 18th batch had 508 soldiers in total, consisting of a 275-member engineering battalion, a 190-member transport battalion, and a 43-member medical team.
It said all the soldiers were from the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Beijing Military Area Command.
It stated their mission to include infrastructure work, such as road and bridge construction, repairs in residential areas and the country’s airports, reconditioning water and power facilities.
The report said the troops were also tasked with transporting personnel and materials, providing medical treatment, contagious and epidemic disease control and prevention.
It said after handing over the work to their successors, the first batch of the 17th detachment troops would return to China on Sept. 9 and the second batch would return on Sept. 18.
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