AROUND AFRICA: China Troops to S. Sudan, Bombings in Nigeria, Ebola Deaths Climb

Peacekeepers.

South Sudan and its neighbors.
(CIA World Factbook)

China is sending a 700-man infantry battalion to South Sudan, its first combat-trained unit to serve in a United Nations peacekeeping mission.

Previous Chinese peacekeepers were mainly engineer, transportation, medical service and security units, according to Xinhua news service.

The unit includes 121 offices and 579 soldiers – 43 members of the battalion have participated in peacekeeping missions before, according to Xinhua. The first 180 soldiers will fly to South Sudan in January. The rest of the unit will travel by air and sea in March.

The battalion will be equipped with drones, armored infantry carriers, anti-tank missiles, mortars, light weapons and other equipment “completely for self-defense purposes,” Commander Wang Zhen said.

China currently has more than 2,000 peacekeepers serving in conflict zones around the world. The U.N. has more than 11,000 peacekeepers in oil-rich South Sudan, which won its independence from Sudan in 2011. Fighting broke out a year ago when President Salva Kiir accused his former deputy, Riek Machar, of plotting a coup.

Fighting in the capital, Juba – one of the fastest growing cities in the world – set off a series of retaliatory massacres that have claimed thousands of lives and driven the country to the brink of famine, according to The Guardian news site.

A 2011 report by the non-governmental organization (NGO) Saferworld, found that, despite stated neutrality, China is gradually using diplomatic means to push for the resolution of certain conflicts, according to The Guardian. The report also said China is becoming both a major supplier of conventional arms in Africa and has increased its contributions to U.N. peacekeeping missions since 2000 – most of them based in Africa.

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Bus Stop, Market Bombings.

At least 26 people have been killed in bombings in two major cities in northern Nigeria, the BBC reported. Twenty were killed at a bus stop in Gombe, while six more died in an explosion at a market in Bauchi.

Nigeria
(CIA World Factbook map)

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but the militant Islamist group Boko Haram is waging an insurgency in the area, the BBC noted.

Meanwhile, a video purportedly released by Boko Haram shows dozens of people being executed at a school dormitory. There is no independent confirmation that Boko Haram produced the video. It is unclear where or when it was shot.

But the video bears Boko Haram’s insignia and shows gun-wielding men chanting “Allah is great” and speaking in the Kanuri language associated with the group’s fighters, says BBC Nigeria analyst Jimeh Saleh.

Meanwhile, Cameroon’s military said it had dismantled a training camp run by Boko Haram near its border with north-eastern Nigeria. Soldiers captured 45 trainers and 84 children between the ages of seven and 15 who were undergoing training, a spokesman for the Ministry of Defence, Lieutenant Colonel Didier Badjecks, told the Reuters news agency.

Despite a strong military presence, Nigeria’s Boko Haram continues to strike targets in northern Cameroon, according to an Al Jazeera report.

Boko Haram launched an insurgency in Nigeria in 2009, seeking to create an Islamic state in the region.

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Ebola Roundup

The World Health Organization says the Ebola death toll in in West Africa has risen to more than 7,500, the Voice of America reported.

And the number of cases is nearing 20,000 according to the WHO’s latest data posted on Monday.

The new numbers show Liberia and Guinea with a decrease in the rate of Ebola transmissions, while Sierra Leone’s cases continue to rise. Those three West African countries account for almost all the Ebola deaths.

The death toll in other countries remains the same with six deaths in Mali, eight in Nigeria, and one in the United States. Spain and Senegal have had one case each, but no deaths.