Vietnam’s UN peacekeepers in Africa – P2: First mission

United Nations peacekeepers, including Vietnam’s two first army officers on the mission, are at constant risk of contracting dengue fever, getting injured or even killed during rebel attacks in South Sudan.

>> Vietnam’s UN peacekeepers in Africa – P1: Flying to war-torn country

During their first week in June 2014 in the South Sudanese capital of Juba, Lieutenant Colonel Tran Nam Ngan and Lieutenant Colonel Mac Duc Trong received comprehensive training in various tasks, including pulling vehicles with ropes, using communicative devices and codes, and getting in touch with contacts.

Lt. Col. Trong revealed that as Vietnam’s two first officers on the mission, he and Lt. Col. Ngan were allowed to serve their ‘internship’ in advisory departments that included personnel, intelligence, combat, ordnance, communications, and civilian-military relations.

“Such tasks were included in a special training program which lasted one week longer than that intended for officers from other countries, as we were also tasked with learning more about the UN’s mechanism in order to brief officials back home on its mission,” Lt. Col. Trong explained.

Lt. Col. Trong and Lt. Col. Ngan shared a container with two Africans during their first days at the UN base.

After the first week, the base was a revolving door of soldiers and officers from different countries entering and moving on to other areas.

The two Vietnamese officers sometimes slept in sleeping bags on the floor.

“When we first arrived [in early June 2014], dengue fever was raging, debilitating many of our peers,” Lt. Col. Ngan recalled.

An officer in Lt. Col. Ngan’s group once flew back to his country to seek treatment for malaria during one month only to announce later that his country was to withdraw from the United Nations’ peacekeeping endeavors.

First mission

The first task the two Vietnamese officers were trusted with was recovering a 10-metric-ton Indian truck stuck in the mud that had tipped over during a mission.

“Our job was to retrieve the vehicle at a location approximately 80 kilometers from the base,” Lt. Col. Ngan recounted.

“It took one day to cover the distance because the dirt roads were frustratingly muddy.”

A group typically consists of two members: a communications officer who leads the group and a guard who ensures the communications officer’s safety.

However, as the two Vietnamese officers were learning on the job, their group consisted of five.

Apart from Trong and Ngan, a veteran communications officer led the group, joined by the head of a security team and another communications officer of the local military.

“A communications officer’s job is to negotiate with the heads of command at different checkpoints and seek their permission to pass. Such areas can be controlled by the government or the local force,” Ngan explained.

“As negotiators, we were not allowed to wield guns as that would easily upset the checkpoint heads,” he elaborated. 

The Vietnamese officers’ first mission was relatively easy as their group only had one checkpoint crossing and they quickly obtained permission to proceed. 

That was the only time that Lt. Col. Trong and his compatriot Ngan were placed on the same mission during their one year in South Sudan.

Not long after the truck mission, the two began their official work and were tasked with patrolling the streets across Juba.

Their patrols gave them stark glimpses into a war-torn country, riddled with smoldering tanks on streets leading to the capital.

After two months in Juba, Lt. Col. Ngan was deployed by the UN to Bor, approximately 200 kilometers away, while his compatriot was stationed in Melut, a small town around 1,000 kilometers from the capital city.

Lieutenant Colonel Mac Duc Trong (first left) poses with his Swedish and Indian peers at Melut Base. Courtesy of Mac Duc Trong

Penetrating the turbulent areas

“During our stay in Juba, we did not fully sense the deadly tension and gloominess of a country ripped apart by civil wars. It was a different story in Bor,” Lt. Col. Ngan said.

Killings occurred there on a daily basis.

Bor City is the capital of Jonglei State, South Sudan’s largest state which is almost equal in size to Vietnam.

South Sudan's President Salva Kiir, a member of the ethnic Dinka majority, dismissed his deputy and arch-rival Riek Machar, an ethnic Nuer, in 2013.

Since then, the two leaders have gone to lengths to incite Jonglei residents of the two races.

Only a few months before Lt. Col. Ngan arrived in Bor, the South Sudanese government’s military tried to reclaim the city – leaving it witness to blood-spattered fights between government troops and the opposition.

Such warring areas pose grave risks to UN peacekeepers.

Two Indian peacekeeping soldiers, along with at least 11 civilians, were killed during an attack on the UN office in Akobo County, Jonglei State.

Four U.S. military staffers were also injured when their plane was shot down, leaving Washington’s evacuation campaign in a grinding standstill.

While killings were rampant in Juba, Vice President Manchar fled from the capital and called for an uprising to take revenge on the Dinka people, causing violence to erupt in Bor, Malakal, and Bentiu. These localities were the scenes of rife rapes and massacres.

According to the UN’s statistics, more than 10,000 people have lost their lives and two million others have lost their property since the breakout of the civil war in South Sudan.

“Many dangers also come from groups of unruly youths, leaving civilians in constant fear and despair,” Ngan observed.

“Our hearts really ached while hearing civilians pleading ‘Please help me!’ Some said they were buying food at a market when soldiers murdered civilians right in front of their eyes,” he sadly added.

Lt. Col. Trong, now a Senior Lieutenant Colonel, noted that while people lived in plain cottages, most of them owned four guns.

Mounting tension prompted members of the majority ethnicity to locate and butcher members of the opposing race.

Trong divulged that all Nuer people residing in the locality where he was stationed have sought refuge from the UN.

“Upon my arrival, bloodshed occurred, as Dinka people stormed a refugee camp at the UN base and massacred more than 80 Nuer people,” he further recounted.

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