During the Spring Festival, the officers and soldiers of the 14th batch of Chinese peacekeepers and engineers stationed in South Sudan (Wau) stuck to the front line of the mission and carried out the task of repairing the supply line roads. Photo by Ma Qian.
Di Bowen, Wang Junjie, reporter of China Youth Daily, China Youth Network, Wang Peinan.
Spring Festival is the most important traditional festival for Chinese, it symbolizes reunion. However, in the African peacekeeping mission area, thousands of miles away from the motherland, the officers and soldiers of the 14th batch of Chinese peacekeepers to South Sudan (Wau) are still fighting on the front line of peacekeeping during the Spring Festival, fulfilling the sacred peacekeeping mission.
Since its rotation and deployment to the mission area in December 2023, the peacekeeping engineer detachment has invested more than 1,300 troops and more than 450 pieces of equipment, and has successively completed a number of engineering support and support tasks, such as the repair of roads along the main supply line and the construction of the board house of the Wau super camp of the United Nations Mission in South Sudan.
Adama Soro, Chief of the Engineering Division of the Wau Camp of UNMISS, lamented: "We are very aware of the importance of the Spring Festival to the Chinese officers and soldiers, and they still insist on participating in the mission during the festival. ”
Repair. This supply line must be repaired as soon as possible, and it is so important to keep traffic moving. During the Spring Festival, Zhang Rui, the 14th batch of Chinese peacekeepers and engineers to South Sudan (Wau), told the accompanying cadres after inspecting the road conditions of the main road from Kovacok to Akop in South Sudan.
Less than 13 years after its founding, South Sudan is not only the youngest country in the world, but also one of the least developed countries. In this context, the humanitarian aid delivered by the United Nations is very important for the civilian population of South Sudan. The "washboard road" in front of Zhang Rui is one of the main supply lines to undertake the task of transporting materials, and the UNSU Mission is eager to complete the road repair task as soon as possible.
There are more than 70 pits with a diameter of more than 2 meters and more than 100 potholes with a diameter of less than 1 meter ......In Zhang Rui's notebook, groups of data are densely recorded. After receiving the task, they quickly dispatched dozens of officers and men and more than 20 sets of construction machinery and equipment, covering engineering, security, medical, repair, telecommunications, cooking, and other professional forces, to immediately launch the task of rushing to repair and rush through the main supply line.
Since the repair of the road requires a large amount of clay with stickiness, the peacekeepers can only select a suitable soil extraction point far away from the main road, and the officers and soldiers operate excavators and loaders to work together to take the soil, and then drive dump trucks to transfer the soil materials to the construction site, and other construction machinery work together to carry out the road repair work. However, as the construction work gradually advanced to the farther part of the road, several officers and soldiers who were responsible for leveling the road were getting farther and farther away from the camp where they were temporarily staying.
If you want to work efficiently, you can't waste time on maneuvers. Zhang Rui calculated the round-trip time, and he found that driving tracked engineering equipment from the residential camp to the operation site would take more than half an hour each way, and due to poor road conditions, it would also aggravate equipment wear and tear, which was easy to cause failure. In order to speed up the progress of the operation, he decided to cancel the scheduled noon return trip, and to deliver hot food to the operation point before the cooking shift, so that the officers and men could organize a rest on the spot, so that one hour of maneuver time could be saved every day.
But in addition to enduring the heat of the noon, there are other difficulties that need to be overcome. "Mosquitoes are rampant, poisonous snakes are infested, and African lizards up to 2 meters long have been found around. Zhang Rui and the soldiers drank the mung bean soup delivered by the cook, while introducing the surrounding situation, and for nearly a month, they had to camp in the harsh field environment.
The more difficult it is, the more difficult it is, the more dedicated, the more dangerous it is, the more it is to be the first! "This peacekeeping engineer unit, which is formed by professional engineering anti-chemical warfare forces, has coped with all kinds of dangerous environments with the unique dedication and responsibility of engineers. "Going abroad represents Chinese standards, and we must always show the image of the best people in China. One of the peacekeepers interviewed spoke out in common with everyone.
Zeal. There is such a scene that occurs almost every day, which impresses Zhang Rui and other peacekeepers deeply. During the operation, many local people passing by smiled and showed a mouthful of white teeth, shouting "China, good!" There are even people who use inaccurate pronunciation, giving a thumbs up and saying, "Thank you, China!" ”
Feeling the enthusiasm of the local people, Zhang Rui and the officers and soldiers continued to fight, carrying out road repair tasks during the day and repairing and maintaining vehicles and equipment at night. Thanks to the efforts of the officers and men of the detachment, the pits were filled one by one, sections of roads were repaired, and after nearly one month of engineering work, this "main artery" of traffic, known as the Kovacok-Akop area of South Sudan, was finally restored to smooth operation.
The Chinese standard and the Chinese speed are amazing! After the mission was completed, UNMIS sent several staff members to inspect it, and when they saw that the roads were smooth and smooth after the main supply line was repaired, the staff praised the peacekeepers again and again.
On Chinese New Year's Eve, the officers and men who had gone out on duty finally returned to the Wau Super Camp of the UNSU Regiment, and as soon as Zhang Rui had just finished organizing the vehicle formation to enter the warehouse, Second Sergeant Majors Feng Junbao and Sun Shengli immediately went to his dormitory and asked: "What failures occurred in the equipment when going out to perform the mission?" Feng Junbao and Sun Shengli, who have been in the army for 22 years, as the two veterans with the longest service and the most sophisticated skills in the peacekeeping engineer detachment, were respectively selected as the general responsible persons for the repair of general vehicles and the repair of construction machinery.
High-temperature work can easily lead to the aging of the line, and the air leakage of the air pipe will affect the braking efficiency ......Due to the fact that many equipment have been used for more than ten years, all kinds of failures occur frequently, Feng Junbao introduced while recording. In the turbulent South Sudan to carry out engineering tasks, officers and soldiers have been away for a long time and have heavy operational tasks, and once the vehicle and equipment "break down", it is very easy to cause people to gather and watch, bringing other insecurity factors.
If you let the equipment go out with a fault, it is equivalent to working with potential safety hazards. Sun Shengli took over the conversation. They also learned that another group of officers and men will soon be going out after the New Year to carry out a repair mission on another main supply line that is farther away and the road conditions are more seriously damaged. Equipment repair was imminent, and the two veterans quickly agreed: "During the Spring Festival holiday, the backbone of the repair organization must work overtime to repair, and the equipment that goes out to work must achieve the best performance." ”
Compared with the Chinese Spring Festival, most of the north is covered in silver and the cold wind is howling, but the current African land is a heat wave. Disassemble and repair the engine, overhaul and replace the vehicle circuit ......During the Spring Festival holiday, under the scorching sun, Feng Junbao and Sun Shengli led the repair backbone to overhaul the equipment one by one, solving one equipment failure after another.
Combat readiness. In the turbulent overseas mission area, peacekeepers are destined to spend the Spring Festival in full-time preparations. According to the information obtained by the combat duty room, there have been many armed conflicts in South Sudan in recent days, and there have even been cases of tribal fighting. "Several gunshots were heard around the camp. Zhou Guanghua, who was in charge of the security task, was very worried.
Toot toot ......The camp has been affected by armed conflict, and it will be dealt with immediately according to the plan! With a piercing siren sounding, an all-element emergency defense drill kicked off.
During the Spring Festival, defense drills were organized, focusing on the response of emergency detachments, the defense of important targets, and the treatment and transfer of the wounded. According to the leaders of the peacekeeping engineer detachment, they strengthened the combat readiness awareness of the troops and improved the ability to deal with emergencies through the exercise, so as to ensure that the peacekeepers had a safe and smooth holiday overseas.
I found dozens of armed men approaching our camp and asked for reinforcements! "After receiving the sentry report, the combat duty room quickly adjusted the combat readiness level, determined the situation through real-time monitoring, and made a decision to act in combination with intelligence analysis and defense plans. After the command group issued the defense order, the peacekeepers quickly received the first ammunition, and the mobile command group went out to the command bunker to strengthen the command of the front-line situation.
After the command and dispatch group issued the order to escalate the conflict, the officers and men of the emergency detachments quickly went out from the underground bunkers to the designated areas in accordance with the combat readiness plan, and built multiple lines of defense in important target areas such as the gate post and the equipment field.
An officer and soldier at the lookout post were injured in the shoulder, and the medical emergency team quickly dealt with it! The officers and men of the first-class hospital, who were on standby in the bunker to provide support, immediately rushed to the scene in ambulances, carried out emergency evacuation of the "wounded," and provided medical treatment in the process of ambulance evacuation.
Since the rotation and deployment, the peacekeeping engineer detachment has taken into account the increasingly severe security situation in the mission area and the complex environment of frequent conflicts, immediately adjusted and built the warning and defense facilities in the barracks, strengthened the methods and means of civil air defense technology, and enabled the peacekeeping barracks to achieve full-time monitoring without blind spots, and effectively strengthened the security and defense capabilities of the detachment.
*: China Youth Daily.