Rwanda has completed deployment of a battalion of 800 peacekeepers to the UN Peacekeeping Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS), increasing the size of the country’s peacekeeping contingent in the war-torn country to more than 1,650 troops, it has emerged.

Military and Defence Spokesperson Brig. Gen. Joseph Nzabamwita told The New Times this week that the officers and men were previously deployed in the Sudanese Darfur region.

The troops moved between May 21 and June 9, he said. 

The move, he said, is part of international efforts to help end a six-month conflict that has ravaged parts of the world’s youngest nation, killing thousands of civilians and displacing millions others.

"We have redeployed one of our four battalions serving under the UN-AU hybrid operation in Darfur (Unamid) to South Sudan,” Brig. Gen. Nzabamwita confirmed to this paper. 

The Rwandan battalion, he said, has been deployed in Malakal in Upper Nile Province, some 650 kilometres from Juba, the capital of South Sudan.

Last month, the UN Security Council adopted a resolution to extend the Mission’s mandate through December and changed its focus from promoting development and nation-building, to protecting civilians and ending the violence in the country.

The country is embroiled in a deadly conflict between the government of President Salva Kirr and the breakaway Sudanese Peoples Liberation Movement in Opposition (SPLM/IO), led by former deputy president Riek Machar.

The UN has since stepped up efforts to put more blue helmets to the ground in the wake of a shaky ceasefire deal signed by the warring parties in recent days as tensions remain. 

To help meet the immediate requirement of more troops, UN Department of Peacekeeping Operation decided on an Inter Mission Cooperation, by transferring troops from other UN peacekeeping missions in the region to reinforce UNMISS. 

As such, Rwanda was requested to re-deploy of one battalion from Unamid to UNMISS.

In 2012, the Rwanda Defence Forces deployed some 850 peacekeepers and an air force unit to South Sudan. Rwanda has more than 5, 000 peacekeepers deployed in various regions across the world, including in Central Africa Republic, another major hotspot.