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a UN soldier on guard duty against a green rural backdrop

It must be a remarkable thing to grow up in rural Nepal, join the army, fight a guerilla insurgency in your own Himalayan backyard, and then be given a blue hat and deployed to militia-ridden, gold-rich Ituri, north-east Congo. Since few Nepalese soldiers speak French, let alone Swahili, they have to rely on local interpreters.

Photograph: Perimeter control at a helicopter landing site in Fataki, Ituri, northeast Congo