'Bullets were zipping over our camp and heads'

Guns, death, poverty and long patrols across swamps and deserts under a baking sun thousands of kilometers from home is a hard life for any young woman.

Yet this was the path that Zhang Yuanyuan chose. She was 23 when she was deployed in 2015 to Juba, capital of South Sudan, as part of China's first female infantry squad to serve in a United Nations peacekeeping mission. The squad had 13 members.

On Oct 2 that year, Zhang went on her first long-distance patrol in an armored vehicle.