The anouncement ceremony for the Vietnamese engineering unit rotation 1 and Level-II field hospital rotation 4 to be deployed to UN peacekeeping mission in Sudan. (Photo: VNA)

Vietnam needs to prepare personnel to meet the requirements of higher positions in United Nations (UN) peacekeeping missions, and continue to send candidates, especially female staff, to the UN headquarters, Colonel Mac Duc Trong, deputy head of the Vietnam Department of Peacekeeping Operations, has said.

Talking to the Vietnam News Agency, Trong stressed the need to participate more in UN peacekeeping operations, and deploy tasks in several tasks such as logistics, liaison and military police, adding that this is a long-term goal set out by the department.

According to him, participating in UN peacekeeping operations is a major policy of the Vietnamese Party and State, and also an important task of the Vietnam People's Army in the new period, contributing to realising the foreign policy of peace, cooperation, development, multilateralisation and diversification of international relations.

Colonel Mac Duc Trong, deputy head of the Vietnam Department of Peacekeeping Operations (Photo: VNA)

Vietnam's engagement in UN peacekeeping operations over the past seven years has achieved many positive results, and at the same time opened up many new directions of deployment, becoming a prominent mark in diplomatic defence, he stated.

The colonel said that recently, for the first time, Vietnam made debut a sapper unit to participate in UN peacekeeping, marking a new development step in expertise and level.

Compared to the level-2 field hospitals Vietnam has deployed before, the sapper unit is larger in number with 184 professional officers and soldiers. In terms of equipment, the unit will deploy about 2,000 tonnes of equipment to the UN Interim Security Force for Abyei (UNISFA), including around 150 machines.

Vietnamese UN peacekeepers (Photo: VNA)

In the coming time, the set goal is to successfully deploy Vietnam's first sapper unit to the UN peacekeeping mission and complete all the tasks assigned by the UN for the humanitarian mission.

Vietnam must continue to keep up the good quality of its level-2 field hospitals to maintain the existing reputation among the missions, he added.

Since the 2021-2022 term, the UN has assigned two more positions to Vietnam at the UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic (MINUSCA), of which the post of communications officer is reserved for women, meeting gender equality policy and increasing the number of female soldiers participating in UN peacekeeping operations.

State President Nguyen Xuan Phuc, Minister of National Defense, General Phan Van Giang, Chairman of the Party Central Committee's Commission of Popularization and Education Nguyen Trong Nghia took a photo with the peacekeeping force of Vietnam, which has successfully completed the task. (Photo: VNA)

Vietnam has deployed personnel for service in the UN peacekeeping operations in South Sudan since 2014. It has dispatched hundreds of officials to missions in South Sudan and the Central African Republic, working in the Movement Control section at the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS), said the Hanoitimes.

UN appreciates Vietnam's participation in peacekeeping

United Nations' Under-Secretary-General for Peace Operations Jean-Pierre Lacroix highly appreciated the capacity of the Vietnamese peacekeeping force, especially through the dispatch of level-2 field hospital teams and the upcoming engineer team.

Jean-Pierre Lacroix, United Nations Under-Secretary-General in charge of peacekeeping, gave an interview to the VNA on December 26, 2021. (Photo: Vietnamplus)

The UN Under-Secretary-General for Peace Operations said that he hoped to continue cooperating more with Vietnam because the UN considered Vietnam to be capable, especially after witnessing the country sending many troops to participate in level 2 field hospitals as well as a team of engineer soldiers to participate in peacekeeping, cited on Vietnamplus.

"I also see that Vietnam is very focused on ensuring the participation rate of female soldiers. If I remember correctly, Vietnam sends up to 15% of female soldiers participating in peacekeeping and we attach great importance to this effort because we believe that if the force has more female soldiers, the operation will be more effective and fruitful", said him.

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