New Delhi, India: India has expressed its support for the peace process and capacity building in South Sudan in its peace journey. The Indian Counsellor at the Permanent Mission to United Nations, Pratik Mathur, took to Twitter to reiterate the Indian support for South Sudan.
India has deployed an all-woman peacekeeping force as part of the Indian Battalion to the United Nations Interim Security Force in Abyei. Abyei area is the border area between South Sudan and Sudan. The 2004 Protocol on Resolution of the Abyei Conflict (Abyei Protocol) provides a special administrative status to the area.
Abyei Town, the capital of the Abyei Area, was considered part of both the Republic of South Sudan and the Republic of Sudan on an interim basis, as per the Abyei protocol. Notably, this is India’s largest single unit of women peacekeepers for the United Nations after Liberia in 2007. India is one of the largest contributors of troops for the United Nations Peacekeeping Nations.
The Indian Contingent consists of two officers and 25 other ranks that are a part of an engagement platoon, which holds a specialization in community outreach as well as carrying out extensive security-related tasks. Working under the United Nations, the team will provide relief and assistance to women and children in those tough terrains.
The women peacekeepers have gained high regard in the peacekeeping missions for their ability to connect with the local women and children, especially the ones who faced sexual violence in conflicted areas.
In 2007, a fully formed Female Police Unit with CRPF Personnel was deployed in the African nation, which was the first all-female police team to be deployed by a UN Peacekeeping nation.
