A team of 100 Chinese Engineering and Medical Troops left for a one-year peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo on Thursday.

Their plane left the Diwopu airport in Urumqi, capital of northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, at 3 a.m.

They are the first group of the 22nd batch of peacekeepers that China has dispatched to the central African nation.

The rest of the 218-member batch will leave on Sept. 28.

The engineering detachment will take on tasks of maintaining roads, bridges, and airports, while the medical team will focus on offering health services and humanitarian aid, as well as tackling epidemics.