South Sudan: Oil May Explain Why China Is Sending Its Infantry To A UN Peacekeeping Mission For The First Time

Jan 16, 2015 | Armin Rosen, Business Insider
View Original

An advanced party of Chinese peacekeepers is in South Sudan and the rest of the 700-strong contingent is due to arrive by early April, a UN official told Reuters on Friday, part of a surge in a UN mission to protect civilians in a nation mired in conflict.

Fighting in the oil-producing nation, which is one of the world's poorest, has killed more than 10,000 people, driven more than a million from their homes and left many without enough food. Fighting erupted in December 2013 in South Sudan, which won independence from Sudan in 2011, after months of political tension between President Salva Kiir and his sacked deputy and political rival, Riek Machar.