{Nearly 10,500 United Nations military personnel are currently in South Sudan, out of an approved total of 12,500, according to the new head of the UN Mission in South Sudan Margarethe Loej.
\n}<\/p>\n
The remaining troops, which include 700 peacekeepers from China \u2013 the first time that country has ever contributed a battalion to a peacekeeping mission \u2013 are still expected. But Loej cautioned that \u201cit takes some time\u201d to transport the necessary vehicles and other equipment.<\/p>\n
The troops that have arrived so far are from Ghana, Rwanda and Ethiopia.<\/p>\n
The UN Security Council upped the approved number of UNMISS peacekeepers by 5,500 in late December, shortly after fighting broke out. The previous mandate was 7,000 troops.<\/p>\n
Loej said the additional troops are needed to provide protection to people living both in and outside the UN bases. <\/p>\n
UNMISS\u2019 force commander is \u201cvery keen to have his troops move around, especially in areas like Upper Nile and Unity states, wherever they can. He even wants them to move out of some of the UN camps to be visible in the communities and thereby give a sense hopefully of security,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
The Security Council also approved a surge in UN police from 900 to 1,323. However, the number is still around 900. This includes 363 specially trained members of the formed police units, who are responsible for curbing violence within the displacement camps at the UN bases.<\/p>\n
Loej did not provide an exact timeline on when the additional forces would arrive, but said, \u201cwe hope to have them all on the ground sooner rather than later.\u201d<\/p>\n
Agencies<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{Nearly 10,500 United Nations military personnel are currently in South Sudan, out of an approved total of 12,500, according to the new head of the UN Mission in South Sudan Margarethe Loej. } The remaining troops, which include 700 peacekeepers from China \u2013 the first time that country has ever contributed a battalion to a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2000054420,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[99],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-16782","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-greatlakesnews","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":{"id":2000054420,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton16782.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton16782.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton16782.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton16782.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton16782.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton16782.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16782","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16782"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16782\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000054420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16782"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=16782"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=16782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}