Exactly a year ago, the officers and personnel of Vietnam’s Level-2 Field Hospital Rotation 7 left home to serve with the United Nations Mission in South Sudan, or UNMISS.

Now, with only days remaining before they complete their mission and return to Vietnam, the hospital’s personnel are busy packing and completing procedures for their journey home. Yet they have still made time to visit disadvantaged children in the South Sudanese capital.

The Vietnamese peacekeepers organized a civil-military cooperation, or CIMIC, activity at the St. Clare children’s home in Juba.

At the end of their deployment, the gifts and embraces became a special farewell from the Vietnamese blue helmets to a country that has been their home for the past year.

They brought clothes, school supplies, books, comic books, toys, candy, balls and other practical items for the children living at the home.

The gifts were greeted with spontaneous excitement. Some children quickly put on shirts bearing the words “I love Vietnam” and began opening their new comic books. Younger children played with toys, candy, balls and balloons.

What began as a gift-giving visit soon became a warm and informal gathering.

Hospital personnel played with the children, read books with them, talked to them and helped care for them. Language differences seemed to matter less as smiles, hand-holding and simple gestures of affection became their most natural way of communicating.

In South Sudan, where daily life continues to be affected by conflict, instability and socioeconomic hardship, homes capable of caring for children who have lost family support play an especially important role.

Betty, founder of the St. Clare home, expressed her gratitude for the visit.

“I am truly grateful and happy for the gifts the Vietnamese soldiers have brought us,” she said. “There are T-shirts for the children and so many things in the boxes that I haven't even had time to open them all. The children will also get to play football soon.

“We are incredibly grateful and very happy to have Vietnam here. I hope you will come and visit us again next time. I don't know what more to say, except: Please come back again. Thank you!”

Her words carried particular meaning because the visit came just as the Vietnamese field hospital was entering the final stage of its deployment.

A day earlier, on the morning of September 18, the hospital held its final flag-raising ceremony under the Vietnamese national flag in Bentiu before leaving the area.

Lieutenant Colonel Tran Duc Tai, the hospital’s director, praised the responsibility, dedication and quiet sacrifices of its personnel, as well as their collective efforts throughout the year-long mission.

According to Tai, the mission will only truly be complete once all personnel, documents, equipment and luggage have been moved according to plan, with absolute safety ensured and every member of the hospital back in Vietnam under orders from their superiors.

Before the unit left Bentiu, Tai issued the order for its journey home, formally beginning the final stage of the hospital’s deployment after a year of service.

After reaching Juba, its personnel began settling into their temporary arrangements while checking and organizing luggage, completing procedures and preparing for the return journey.

The group is expected to be flown home on September 24 aboard a C-17 aircraft operated by the Royal Australian Air Force.

The visit to St. Clare was more than a final gift-giving activity before departure. It continued the approach the unit had maintained throughout its deployment: alongside medical and peacekeeping duties, Vietnamese personnel sought to build closer ties with local communities through practical acts of support.

Vietnamese Communist Party chief and President To Lam is currently in the United States to attend the high-level debate of the 81st United Nations General Assembly. UN peacekeeping has become a prominent part of Vietnam’s engagement with the organization.

Vietnam began participating in UN peacekeeping in 2014, initially sending two officers to South Sudan as liaison officers.

Since then, the country has deployed more than 1,300 personnel, including 32 police officers, to peacekeeping missions, UN headquarters in New York and a UN liaison office in Belgium.

Vietnam’s military contributions include 187 individual officer deployments, seven rotations of Level-2 field hospitals and four engineering unit rotations.

As personnel from Level-2 Field Hospital Rotation 7 and Engineering Unit Rotation 4 prepare to return home, 258 members of Engineering Unit Rotation 5 and Level-2 Field Hospital Rotation 8 are preparing to replace them and continue Vietnam’s peacekeeping mission.

Level-2 Field Hospital Rotation 7 comprises 70 personnel selected from military units across Vietnam, with doctors and medical staff from Military Hospital 175 forming its core.

In September 2025, Level-2 Field Hospital Rotation 7 and Engineering Unit Rotation 4 departed Vietnam for peacekeeping duties with UNMISS in South Sudan and the United Nations Interim Security Force for Abyei, or UNISFA.

A Level-2 field hospital is a temporary medical facility designed for rapid deployment to areas where medical care is urgently needed. Vietnam has so far deployed seven rotations of such hospitals.

UNMISS was established in 2011 under UN Security Council Resolution 1996. Its mandate includes protecting civilians, supporting the delivery of humanitarian assistance and advancing the implementation of South Sudan’s peace process.