The engineer corps brigade, the first batch of Chinese peacekeepers to Sudan's Darfur region, was established in Zhengzhou on Friday.

The brigade, composed of 315 engineer corps personnel of Beijing and east China's Jinan military commands of the Chinese People's Liberation Army, will be charged with bridge construction, water source exploring and road maintenance.

The Sudanese government earlier this month approved UN Security Council Resolution 1769 on a 26,000-strong "hybrid" peacekeeping force to be jointly conducted by both the UN and the African Union in Sudan's western region of Darfur.

China has contributed more than 7,000 peacekeepers to UN peacekeeping operations since 1990.

They have built more than 7,300 kilometers of roads and 200 bridges, treated 28,000 patients, performed more than 230 surgical operations, and cleared over 7,500 explosives.

(Xinhua News Agency August 18, 2007)