DHAKA, March 15: Bangladesh has finalized preparation for sending some 1,600 troops under the UN peacekeeping mission to Sudan. The government is now awaiting a final nod from the United Nations.

A six-member UN team arrived in Dhaka on Monday for pre-deployment inspection, said a senior official in the Bangladesh Army’s public relation department.

“Although we are yet to finalize as how many peacekeepers will be sent this time, we expect it will be about 1,600, mostly from the army and some from the navy,” the officer said.

Since Bangladesh started participating in the UN peacekeeping missions in 1988, it earned Tk 4,600 crore by contributing 40,800 soldiers of the Bangladesh Army.

More than 8,000 peacekeepers from the Bangladesh armed forces are now deployed in 11 countries. Nine Bangladeshi army men were killed in Democratic Republic of Congo in February in the worst ever attack by rebels.