Four Uruguayan peacekeepers accused of sexually assaulting a young Haitian man are to be sent home this week, the U.N. mission in the Caribbean nation says.

The soldiers, who were based in southern Haiti, stand accused of attacking an 18-year-old man in the small coastal town of Port-Salut.

Unverified Video Evidence

The accuser, Johnny Jean, and his mother, Rose Marie Jean, told Haitian radio stations he was raped by Uruguayan marines July 28 and provided testimony to a judge.

Vividly disturbing video footage of the alleged attack on a Uruguayan base has surfaced on the Internet. The one-minute video, which circulated on dozens of mobile phones in Port Salut, pans out from a sideways close up of the youth's strained face to reveal his body being held down on a mattress by light-skinned men wearing camouflage-coloured clothes.

The video ends as the bedraggled young man is grabbed by the arm and pulled onto his feet.

It has been said that the U.N. inquiry had not yet proven the video's authenticity, but that "the results of the investigation will determine the facts."

Repatriation

Haitian President Michel Martelly has condemned the alleged attack and demanded a detailed report on the exact circumstances of the incident.

"They will soon be repatriated. It's just a question of getting the right papers signed. They will surely leave this week," a spokeswoman for the U.N. peacekeeping mission told the Haitian media Tuesday.

Martelly said the perpetrators of what he called "a collective rape carried out against a young Haitian" would not go unpunished.

Martelly also requested a meeting between Haitian officials and U.N. mission staff so that "measures can immediately be taken to ensure that such acts do not reoccur," his office said.

On Monday, hundreds of people demonstrated in Port-Salut to demand justice for the alleged victim, while some Haitians have asked for the U.N. mission -- in the country since 2004 -- to be shut down.

Uruguay's Response

The Uruguayan government has opened a separate investigation, as peacekeepers must be tried in their home country for any crimes allegedly committed during their deployments abroad. President Jose Mujica also apologized to Martelly.

"We apologize for the abuse that some soldiers of my country perpetrated," Mujica wrote in a letter to Martelly.

"Although the damage is irreparable, have the certainty that we will investigate thoroughly and apply the harshest sanctions against those responsible," Mujica said in a separate statement.

He also apologized on behalf of the country's armed forces, which he said, where humiliated by "the criminal and embarrassing behavior by a few."

A navy commander with the U.N. mission in Haiti has also been relieved of his post.

Such a devastating incident poses the question of just how many if not more cases, especially by people in authority and high positions, go unreported each year.

The U.N. mission - formed to help maintain peace after chaos erupted at the end of Jean-Bertrand Aristide's presidency - has also come under fire after a cholera outbreak that could have been transmitted by Nepalese peacekeepers.