CHENGDU, Sept. 17 (Xinhua) -- A team of 110 Chinese peacekeepers Tuesday departed Chengdu, capital of southwest China's Sichuan Province, for the Democratic Republic of Congo for a one-year peacekeeping mission.
They are the first group of the 23rd batch of peacekeepers that China has dispatched to the central African nation. With 218 members in total, the battalion consists of a sapper team of 175 and a medical unit of 43. They will be sent to the mission area in two batches.
The sapper team will be tasked with engineering support, repairing roads, constructing airports and barracks and destroying unexploded ammunition in mission areas. The medical unit will carry out tasks including treating the wounded, medical evacuation and epidemic prevention.
Besides undergoing special training, the peacekeepers have also studied UN peacekeeping regulations, diplomatic protocols and local customs to better fulfill the mission.
Among the officers and soldiers, 56 have conducted peacekeeping missions previously.
