SOUTH Africa will send soldiers to Democratic Republic of Congo to act as an advance team to facilitate the deployment of four battalions of UN monitors there, President Thabo Mbeki said on Wednesday. “It will be more of a headquarters group that will enable support for the UN mission,” Mbeki said in a special address to parliament. He said the South Africans will “ensure that the infantry groups that will play the role of monitors will be able to function properly”. Mbeki did not say how many South African soldiers will be sent to the DRC or when they will be deployed, but said he would inform Parliament in due course. He stated that the United Nation’s special representative to the DRC had told a recent meeting of African leaders in Algiers that “some technical work” needed to be done before UN peacekeepers could be deployed. It is expected that some 5500 UN troops will be deployed in the DRC.