East Timor: UN peacekeepers to leave

United Nations peacekeepers are leaving East Timor as part of a major scaling-down of the UN mission there.

The UN has been supporting East Timor ever since its decision to break away from Indonesia and become an independent country in 1999.

The referendum was marked by violence which left around 1,500 people dead.

At one time, there were around 9,000 UN peacekeepers serving in East Timor. Now the final 1,300 are packing up and pulling out.

The world’s youngest country has come a long way since the bloody violence which marked its decision to break away from Indonesia in 1999.