BEIJING, April 28 -- The first deployment of a huge UN peacekeeping mission in Sudan has begun with 12 Nepalese soldiers and equipment arriving in the west of the country.

    The soldiers are part of an eventual deployment of 10,000 peacekeeping troops, military observers and hundreds of civilian police to help shore up a peace deal signed in January which ended more than two decades of civil war in Sudan's south.

    UN spokeswoman Radhia Achouri reveals that the Nepalese contingent will eventually number 225 troops and will be deployed to Kassala in Sudan's east.

    The southern conflict, which has claimed 2 million lives, is spread across the south and the east of Africa's largest country.

    UN peacekeepers in Sudan will mostly come from China, Kenya, Zambia, Egypt, India, Bangladesh as well as small contingents from some Western countries and will form the UN's third largest military deployment.

    (Source: CRIENGLISH.com)