NYALA, Sudan, May 22 (ChinaMil) -- Eighty-three Chinese peacekeeping engineers returned to their base camp in Nyala from the Marra Mountains on May 19, local time, after completing the construction tasks assigned by the African Union-United Nations Hybrid Operation Mission in Darfur (UNAMID).
Two months ago, the 14th Chinese peacekeeping engineering detachment to Darfur received an order from the UNAMID to build a new combat base for the UN peacekeeping forces in the Marra Mountains, a place none of the peacekeeping forces under the UNAMID has entered yet.
The Marra Mountains area is not only a vacuum in UNAMID's personnel deployment, but also a stronghold for various anti-government armed forces in Darfur.
"In the past two months, 11 armed attacks took place within a radius of 5km around the construction site, causing more than 30 deaths and injuring up to 100 persons," said Bi Xianbo, commander of the 14th peacekeeping engineering detachment.
"Thus, Chinese engineers worked fully armed during the daytime and slept with the gun in hand at night," he said.
To put a neat and standard peacekeeping base into use before the rainy season arrives, the eighty-three Chinese peacekeeping engineers completed, in less than two months, thirty-one construction tasks including tent pitching, prefab houses assembly, building aircraft parking apron, laying wires and water pipelines .