KASHGAR, Oct. 21-- On the morning of October 19, Beijing time, the first batch of 43 peacekeepers from China's first peacekeeping helicopter contingent to Abyei, Sudan successfully returned home after completing 26 months of continuous peacekeeping missions overseas.
Taking the UN Mi-8 helicopters, Q-400 transport aircraft and Chinese IL-76 transport aircraft successively, they set out from Abyei and eventually arrived in Kashgar, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, after a journey of 23 hours.
With an area of about 10,000 square kilometers, the Abyei region is one of the disputed areas between Sudan and South Sudan in Africa. China's first peacekeeping helicopter contingent to Abyei was directly selected overseas from China's 3rd peacekeeping helicopter contingent to Darfur, Sudan, which had been deployed to the mission area in Darfur in August 2019. All the 86 peacekeepers to Abyei came from an army aviation brigade under the PLA 82nd Group Army.
During the mission period in Darfur, the contingent resumed and opened 19 mission points with a total mileage of 3,598 kilometers. They successfully completed more than 90 missions such as escort for VIPs, emergency medical evacuation, surveys in unfamiliar areas, and passenger and cargo transportation, with 1,195 people and more than 40 tons of goods involved.
As the first Chinese peacekeeping force to Abyei region and the first non-Ethiopian military unit, the Chinese helicopter contingent successfully opened up a new mission area, expanded the geographic scope of China's participation in UN peacekeeping operations, and effectively tested the troops’ capability to perform diversified missions overseas, making a landmark in the Chinese military peacekeeping history.
It is learned that another 43 peacekeepers will continue to complete the rotation with the next peacekeeping contingent to Abyei and return to China in early November.