KUNMING - A Chinese team of 85 soldiers left for an eight-month long peacekeeping mission in Lebanon on Tuesday.

The troops will clear mines, construct roads, provide humanitarian aid and help mark a temporary Lebanon-Israel border.

This is the first group of the 14th peacekeeping force China is sending to Lebanon. The second team of 95 staff will leave on May 26.

The peacekeeping staff were selected from a sapper corps in the fourteenth army group of the People's Liberation Army. The corps has fulfilled seven peacekeeping missions in Lebanon since 2006, and participated in disaster relief in the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake and the latest Nepal quake.