Chinese peacekeeping detachment to S Sudan established

The first Chinese peacekeeping engineering detachment to the Republic of South Sudan held its inaugural ceremony at the Jinan Military Area Command (MAC) of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) on January 4, 2012. Starting from January 11, the detachment will be dispatched to Wau City in South Sudan in three batches. This is also the 9th Chinese peacekeeping detachment to Wau.

The peacekeeping engineering detachment, composed of 3 engineering support units, 1 backup support unit and 1 guard unit, is mainly responsible for building roads, bridges, airports, makeshift barracks, protective shelters and field works, providing engineering support to troops within the mission area and other tasks.

Organized by the Tigers Division of the Jinan MAC and different from former 8 peacekeeping detachments to Wau, the 9th detachment to Wau must protect its safety on its own. When the troops are out on mission, the United Nations will not send security force for them. Therefore, for the first time in history, the detachment establishes a guard unit and is equipped with armored vehicles.

"Since the security situation in the mission area is complex and the specialized technical units' emergency response and defense capability is weak, the detachment prioritized training of emergency response and defense capability during intensive training. It strengthened training on such subjects as light-arms firing, individual tactics and security alert. More than 30 preplans were devised including after-attack response in barracks, security defense while vehicles are moving and countermeasures to militants' attack. Repeated training and drilling have effectively strengthened the organizing and commanding capabilities of commanders at all levels and the defending and combat capabilities of the units," said Senior Colonel Gong Maodong, commander of the Tigers Division.