First Portugese peacekeepers head for Lebanon

Twelve Portuguese engineers left Lisbon for the Lebanese capital of Beirut on Wednesday as the vanguard of the 140-strong peacekeeping force the country pledged for southern Lebanon, devastated by the 34-day war over the summer.

Portugal's supreme national defense council decided on Aug. 30 to contribute an engineering company to the 15,000-strong United Nations peacekeeping mission to be deployed in Lebanon.

The chief of staff of Portugal's armed forces said on Wednesday that the main task of the mechanized engineering company is to clean up and rehabilitate buildings and other infrastructure in southern Lebanon, damaged in the recent armed conflict between Israel and the Lebanese Hezbollah guerillas.

It is the requirement of a UN Security Council resolution adopted in August to deploy a large-scale UN peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon to police a truce between Israel and Hezbollah.

Portugal's official figures showed that the country currently has 731 military personnel serving as peacekeepers in Bosnia, Afghanistan, Iraq, East Timor and Sudan.

Source: Xinhua