This was the first time China had sent servicewomen on a UN peace-keeping mission, the Peace-keeping Affairs Office of the Chinese Ministry of National Defense said in Beijing Tuesday.

The dispatched women are doctors and nurses from a hospital in the Shenyang military command area, northeast China, who would join the medical team and an engineers company of 175 men and officers on the peace-keeping mission in the D.R. Congo. They are now waiting for the final UN order to depart.

Since its first dispatch of military observers to UN peacekeeping activities in 1990, the Chinese armed forces have been involved in 10 peace-keeping operations. So far, it has sent more than 650 military observers, liaison officers, advisors or staff officers and more than 800 engineering officers and soldiers to the UN peace-keeping operations.

After China's first batch of 15 policemen took part in UN peace-keeping operations in January 2000, the Chinese government has sent in successive groups 198 civilian policemen and policewomen to serve in East Timor and Bosnia-Herzegovina.

The UN peace-keeping operations are conducted by forceful military personnel dispatched in accordance with UN security Council resolutions or its General Assembly resolutions to conflicting areas worldwide to restore and maintain peace.

(Xinhua News Agency February 12, 2003)