South Korea will send 240 troops to earthquake-ravaged Haiti to join the United Nations peacekeeping operation, the foreign ministry said Monday.

According to a document submitted to parliament's foreign affairs committee, 240 troops including 120 military engineers will be stationed in Leogane, about 40 kilometers west of the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince, by the end of 2010 as part of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH).

The move follows the dispatch of a team of nine South Korean officials on a fact-finding mission to the small Caribbean country in the wake of a magnitude-7.3 earthquake on January 12.

The bill on planned troop dispatch will be put to the vote later this week, local media said.

(Xinhua News Agency February 8, 2010)