Cambodia offers troops to Mali under UN peacekeeping mission: PM

Cambodia will send troops to the conflict-torn West African nation of Mali for the first time under the United Nations peacekeeping mission, Prime Minister Hun Sen said Thursday.

"Soon, we will send our peacekeepers to Mali to join the UN peacekeeping operation,"the premier said, adding that currently, the country's soldiers are present in South Sudan and Lebanon.

Lieutenant General Sem Sovanny, general director of the National Center for Peacekeeping Force, said some 298 Cambodian troops will be sent to Mali sometime in December because they are required to start their duties over there in January.

The peacekeepers will work in mine clearance and civil engineering, he said.

Mali was plunged into turmoil after a March 2012 coup that led to an Islamic rebel takeover of large swathes of the West African country and France launched a military operation in January to oust them.

Since 2006, Cambodia had more than 1,600 peacekeepers deployed in UN operations in Sudan, South Sudan, Chad, Central Africa and Lebanon. So far, all of them had ended their missions and returned home, except some 152 peacekeepers in South Sudan and 218 troops in Lebanon.

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