DM Monitoring
TIANJIN: A 350-member echelon of China’s seventh peacekeeping infantry battalion to Juba, South Sudan, on Thursday departed north China’s Tianjin on a one-year mission.
They are the first batch of the 700-strong peacekeeping infantry battalion dispatched by China to the east African country.
The team will be tasked with carrying out armed patrols, responding to conflicts and protecting civilians, among other peacekeeping missions.
They have undergone a three-month training session covering more than 150 subjects to enhance their professionalism and emergency response capabilities.
The second echelon will depart for South Sudan in late December.
Earlier November 30, Amnesty International said the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) must maintain the arms embargo on South Sudan, after confirming shocking cases of extreme violence by government forces and an increase in attacks on civilians, including war crimes, across the country in 2020.
New research by Amnesty International has documented a series of extrajudicial executions, forced displacement, torture, and destruction of civilian property by government and former opposition forces between April and June 2020 in Central Equatoria State, southwest of the capital Juba.
The UNSC is set to conduct a mid-term review of its arms embargo and other measures on South Sudan before 15 December.
“Earlier this year, as South Sudan’s officials called for the arms embargo to be lifted, government soldiers were shooting civilians, burning homes, raping women and girls, and displacing tens of thousands of people from their villages in the south of the country,” said Deprose Muchena, Amnesty International’s East and Southern Africa Director.
“The atrocities of this conflict compound the decades of suffering of the millions of South Sudanese, who survived war crimes and crimes against humanity during the struggle for independence from Sudan.
“Quite simply, the government of South Sudan has failed to protect its people. It would be irresponsible of the Security Council to suspend or lift the arms embargo now, in light of the horrendous human rights violations being committed by government forces.”
Clashes have continued in the southern part of the country between the rebel group known as the National Salvation Front (NAS), on the one hand, and the government’s South Sudan People’s Defence Forces (SSPDF) and Sudan’s People’s Liberation Army-In Opposition (SPLA-IO), on the other.
