COLOMBO, Sept. 25 (Xinhuanet) -- Some 150 Sri Lankan soldiers on Saturday left for Haiti to join the United Nations peacekeeping troops in the troubled Caribbean country.

    An emotional ceremony was held at the country's only international airport located some 30 kilometers northeast of capital Colombo with families of the dispatched soldiers bidding farewell and wishing their beloved well on their first oversees peace mission.

    About 7,000 soldiers and 1,500 civilian police on a UN peace mission took over the disordered country in June to bring the situation under control after the ousting of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide on Feb. 29.

    The almost two decades of fighting between the Sri Lankan government troops and the Tamil Tiger rebels stopped when the two sides signed a Norwegian-brokered ceasefire in February 2002.

    The ceasefire has been in place ever since then, enabling the small Indian Ocean island to play a limited role in the UN peace mission. Enditem