TUNISIAN soldiers are preparing to join the United Nations peacekeeping force in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), according to the Tunisian defence ministry. President Zine el Abidine Ben Ali discussed the deployment, set for Saturday, with Defense Minister Dali Jazi in a meeting Tuesday, officials said. The soldiers, thought to number 200 though the figure has not been officially confirmed, will be honored at a ceremony before their departure. Tunisians served in the vast central African country during a civil war there in the early 1960s. They have also been sent to Cambodia, Somalia, Rwanda and, most recently, Kosovo. An overall force of 3_,000 peacekeepers is to be deployed in the DRC to back up about 500 military observers whose job will be to monitor a ceasefire signed in 1999.
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