Japan troops to withdraw from South Sudan

By AFP

Sudan

MAR 10, 2017 LISTEN

Roughly 350 Japanese military engineer troops are in South Sudan as part of the UN peacekeeping mission to perform tasks such as road construction and maintenance. By (AFP/File)

Tokyo (AFP) - Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced Friday a plan to pull the nation's engineering troops from South Sudan in May after five years of a peacekeeping mission.

"As South Sudan's nation-building reaches a new stage, I assessed that the Self Defense Force's construction and maintenance work in Juba has reached" an appropriate point to end, Abe told reporters.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga stressed at a separate news conference that it was not due to a deterioration in security in the area, according to Kyodo News.

Currently roughly 350 Japanese military engineer troops are in the violence-hit nation as part of the UN peacekeeping mission to perform tasks such as road construction and maintenance.

South Sudan, the world's youngest nation, was engulfed by a civil war in 2013 and faces various humanitarian crises such as famine.