The Engineering Company Rotation 2 has been sent to Abyei early this August amid the long rainy season. Heavy rains all day long made the bad traffic condition worse. In the locality that more than 95% of the terrain consists of dirt roads and many roads have seriously degraded; many roads are impossible to travel on in rainy season. Therefore, over the past time, getting stuck whenever the rain falls has become an obsession for both locals and the U.N. Mission’s staff.
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Vietnamese engineers promptly dealing with the incident |
On early morning of August 15, the Vietnamese company’s chief received a call from the mission’s commander to ask for the deployment of a rescue team to help pull a U.N. tanker truck stuck in mud a day before on the road section from To Dach to Goli. This is the arterial road of the Northern sub-region. Attentively, the road section is near market Amiet with high traffic volume and complicated population situation.
Right after receiving the order, the Vietnamese official quickly convened the unit’s chain-of-command, discussed and agreed on a rescue plan.
Promptly, a rescue team consisting of 15 engineers and four vehicles, led by Major Vu Tri Xuyen, the command’s deputy chief, was formed and rushed to the scene which was some 40km from their barracks.
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Roads degrade in rains and floods become an obsession for local people and U.N. staff in Abyei. |
It took them more than two hours to approach the site due to the difficult terrains and the heavy rain a day earlier. When reaching the scene, they saw that two other vehicles of local people also got stuck. The muddy road and language barrier (local drivers do not speak English) made the duty more difficult. However, with the careful preparation of both people and equipment, and the experience shared by their predecessors, the rescue team quickly handled the problem and rescued all three vehicles after two hours.
On August 16, a mission from the company, led by its chief Senior Colonel Nguyen Viet Hung, Commanding Officer of the Vietnamese peacekeeping force at UNISFA Mission, studied the situation in the Southern sub-region. On their way, they found a pickup truck unmoved. Immediately, the mission developed a plan to tow the truck, using the winch of the command vehicle. They succeeded after half an hour, helping facilitate local traffic. The owner of the vehicle thanked the mission for their enthusiastic and quick help.
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Vietnamese peacekeepers helping pull the struck vehicles from the mud |
Major Vu Tri Xuyen, Deputy Chief of the company, shared that right after arriving in Abyei, the company sent missions to study assigned roads, including 44km of road in the Northern sub-region and 15km of road in the Southern one. The unit has also developed plans to set up mobile teams, prepare vehicles and equipment to take on any missions on request.
Though working in harsh weather conditions and driving in a long distance, all tired members of the mission felt excited since they had successfully completed their first rescue missions. In an unstable security place like Abyei, if vehicles are not promptly rescued and pulled out of the mud, their owners may have to eat and sleep in forests, facing unexpected unsafe situations like being attacked, or robbed.
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The U.N. vehicle drives across the mud after being rescued. |
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Clip of the first missions taken on by Engineering Company Rotation 2 |
Hendrik Hamman, a staff of the Integrated Force Mobility Team (IFMT) of the UNISFA Mission, said that “freshly-deployed to the area, the Engineering Company Rotation 2 has taken on a huge amount of work, both receiving duties from Rotation 1 and implementing the new tasks, but I believe that you will well perform the tasks assigned by the mission because you are the Vietnam Engineering Company. Thank you Vietnam.”
By Thinh Tran and Hai Yen from Abyei
Translated by Mai Huong