El Salvador sends 2,000 troops to Haiti to rescue four missing soldiers

El Salvador has deployed more than 2,000 soldiers to Haiti as part of a mission to retrieve four nationals who went missing in the Caribbean country almost two weeks ago.

The “robust deployment” was communicated by El Salvador President Nayib Bukele to the Prime Minister of Haiti Alix Didier Fils-Aime earlier this week, the foreign ministry of El Salvador said in a statement on Wednesday.

Bukele said the soldiers would also assist ongoing “security efforts against gangs in Haiti”, the statement continued.

Tensions between the two central American countries have escalated over the disappearance of the four air force technicians working as part of a UN-backed anti-gang organisation in Haiti.

The four soldiers with the Gang Suppression Force (GSF) were travelling back to their base in an armoured vehicle when they were ambushed in an area of the Caribbean island nation controlled by armed groups called Croix-des-Bouquets.

No gang has so far claimed responsibility.

The Salvadoran foreign ministry said the “large-scale operation” was “supported by various countries and international organisations”.

Earlier this week, Haiti handed four bodies over to special forces claiming they belonged to those of the missing servicemen, but Bukele said they did not match.

He said one of the corpses was a child’s and another was wearing a different country’s military uniform.

Bukele threatened last week in an X post to wipe out Haiti’s gangs, saying he will replicate action he has taken in El Salvador, if they did not release the Salvadorans.

In October last year, the UN Security Council approved expanded powers for the GSF to tackle worsening gang violence in Haiti.

The multinational force has struggled to penetrate areas where gangs hold sway. More than 5,700 people were killed in gang-related violence in Haiti this year, the UN says, and armed gangs control much of the capital.

Haiti has been ravaged by gang violence for years, but the situation has worsened in the political vacuum that followed the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse in 2021.