By Zhang Zhe, Li Zhulin
BEIJING, Aug. 12 -- The second-echelon 205 peacekeepers of the 21st Chinese peacekeeping force to Lebanon set out from Kunming, southwest China’s Yunnan Province, on August 10. They will join up with their 205 fellow peacekeepers, who arrived in Lebanon on July 28 as the first echelon.
The 21st Chinese peacekeeping force to Lebanon has 410 members in total, consisting of a 180-member multi-role engineering contingent, a 200-member construction engineering contingent, and a 30-member medical contingent. The three contingents will mainly undertake the tasks of mine clearance and explosives disposal, engineering construction, medical rescue and humanitarian assistance.
In the past 16 years, China has cumulatively dispatched more than 7,000 peacekeepers to the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL). The Chinese peacekeeping engineers have conducted mine hunting and clearing in nearly two million square meters of suspected landmine areas and around 15,000m of patrol roads, and removed more than 10,000 landmines and explosives of various types with zero casualties.
