Salvadoran Troops Patrol Haiti's Capital
El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele has sent about 2,000 soldiers to Haiti to find four missing air force technicians and to help fight the gangs.
Hillside neighborhoods of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, above the bay, September 2008.Illustration by The Good Times, based on a U.S. Navy photo (public domain)
Convoys of armed Salvadoran soldiers in armored vehicles moved through Port-au-Prince's Tabarre neighborhood, part of a force of about 2,000 troops El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele has sent to Haiti. They were sent after four Salvadoran air force technicians serving with the UN-backed Gang Suppression Force went missing in a gang attack. Haiti's government says the four were abducted; no gang has claimed the attack. Bukele says the troops will bring the four home and help fight the gangs. "This is not an operation against the Haitian people, nor an invasion of the country of Haiti," he wrote. "We are not a great power." Haiti's government says the two countries are working together within the UN-backed force. Armed gangs control much of the capital. The UN says more than 5,700 people have been killed or wounded in Haiti's gang violence this year.
A convoy of heavily armed Salvadoran soldiers in armored vehicles drove through the Tabarre neighborhood of Port-au-Prince, Haiti's capital. They are part of a force of about 2,000 troops that El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele sent to Haiti this week.
The missing technicians
The four Salvadorans were air force technicians with the Gang Suppression Force, a multinational force backed by the UN. They went missing after a gang attack, and Haiti's government says they were abducted. No gang has claimed responsibility.
Bukele says the mission is to bring them home and to support security efforts against Haiti's gangs. "This is not an operation against the Haitian people, nor an invasion of the country of Haiti," he wrote on X in Haitian Creole. "We are not a great power. We have no interest in coming to dominate the Haitian people, nor in laying hands on Haiti's wealth."
The force and the gangs
Haiti's government says the two countries are reinforcing cooperation within the framework of the UN-backed force. Armed gangs control much of the capital. The UN puts the toll of gang violence this year above 5,700; AP reports the figure as people killed or wounded, the BBC as people killed.