With blue helmets, China aids Darfur
Print Edition
THERE was no cake to share and no candles to blow out, but 19-year-old Ding Zhaoke had the most special and unforgettable birthday of his young life — at a UN peacekeeping camp in Sudan’s war-torn Darfur region.
The Chinese blue helmet’s birthday fell on January 13, only two weeks after he and 224 fellow soldiers traveled nearly 10,000 kilometers from east China’s Jinan City to Nyala town in Darfur, where they serve as part of the 12th batch of Chinese peacekeepers deployed here by the UN.
The only “special treatment” for the UN blue helmet on his birthday was a large bowl of noodles, a symbol of longevity in the Chinese tradition. Ding was still moved to tears, because he knew that the birthday dish, made of three packs of already-expired instant noodles and two eggs, was a real luxury given the limited pantry at the camp’s canteen.
For over a decade, bloody conflicts have devastated the Darfur region in western Sudan, leaving residents stricken with poverty and loss. Some 1 million people have lost their homes.
The scorching sun and dry weather have only added to the distress. Most crops don’t grow here.
The Chinese blue helmets who were sent a 12-month mission here were told that they should not count on supplies from home. Shipping is often disrupted, and even if it wasn’t, it would take months. Any food they brought from home is treasured, and usually saved for special occasions like Chinese Lunar New Year.
But the lack of familiar foods wasn’t the soldiers’ biggest concern. Most of them, including Ding, are on their first peacekeeping mission, and worry about security and the impact such an assignment can have on physical and mental health.
Liu Kaiyong, who has served on three UN missions prepared them for the challenges that would lie ahead.
Stay alert and keep yourself safe, take your antimalarial drugs on time, and keep yourself busy to overcome homesickness were some of Liu’s most common suggestions. For many young soldiers, Liu took on the figure of an elder brother or father. Jokingly, they would even call him a nag.
“The lessons I’m passing on came at the cost of blood and even lives of other peacekeepers,” Liu said. “It is my duty to share them with my brothers in arms so that they can carry out their mission safely and smoothly.”
The UN Resolution authorizing the deployment of peacekeepers to Darfur was adopted on July 31, 2007, the last day of China’s presidency of the UN Security Council. It was a bid to end the region’s humanitarian crisis.
Since 2008, over 3,000 Chinese soldiers have been deployed to Darfur and carried out numerous non-combat missions, which included road maintenance, infrastructure construction, fortification building and medical assistance.
Over the past years, they have constructed a China-Sudan friendship school, dug more than 10 wells that enabled more than 160,000 people to access drinking water, and they have built and maintained the Nyala airport, currently the region’s only pathway to the outside world.
Despite the continued outbreak of armed conflicts the last 11 batches of Chinese peacekeepers deployed to Darfur have returned home safely. Every member was awarded an honorary medal of peace by the UN.
Last September, President Xi Jinping announced at the UN headquarters that China will set up a permanent peacekeeping police squad and build a peacekeeping standby force of 8,000 troops to keep peace in the region.
The young blue helmets of batch 12, they look forward to contributing to stability in an area of the world that has seen tremendous suffering.
“We were all shocked by what we saw on our way from the airport to the camp site: numerous checkpoints, refugee camps with thatched roofs, and children drinking from roadside ditches,” Ding recalled.
To most of the soldiers, who grew up in a time of increasing prosperity, it was difficult to see in what misery some people have to live.
“We know it’s all because of the war,” said Ding. “So we must try our best to guard peace here. This is a sacred mission that transcends the boundaries of countries.”
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