Japan to withdraw from South Sudan peacekeeping mission

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Japan’s Self Defence Force will withdraw from the United Nations peacekeeping mission in South Sudan when its troops there return home around the end of May, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said.

The Japanese military contingent’s primary mission for the past five years has been to build infrastructure in the war-torn country.

However, in a move that stoked controversy in Japan, the contingent was allowed to mount rescue missions and escort U.N. staff and personnel of non-government bodies (NGO) from November last year, in line with a 2015 security law expanding the overseas role of the SDF, as the Japanese military is known.