A total of 135 officers and men of the first echelon of the 11th Chinese peacekeeping engineer battalion of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) left by air at 20:00 on March 18, 2013 for Lebanon to carry out their 8-month-long peacekeeping mission.
The members of the 11th Chinese peacekeeping engineer battalion mainly come from a PLA engineer regiment stationed in southwest China's Yunnan province which had carried out peacekeeping missions abroad for six times, according to Nie Xuezheng, commander of the 11th Chinese peacekeeping engineer battalion.
After arriving in Lebanon, the officers and men will carry out tasks including mine-sweeping and explosive-removing, road construction and maintenance, fortification construction as well as humanitarian rescue and assistance in the border areas of southern Lebanon.
This is the sixth time for Liu Qingzhong, a mine-sweeping expert, to implement the peacekeeping tasks abroad, making him the most experienced one among his comrades-in-arms.
Nie Xuezheng expressed that although stationed abroad, the officers and men with their firm political belief will certainly fulfill their glorious missions entrusted by the United Nations (UN) and win honors for China with their outstanding achievements.
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