El Salvador deploys hundreds of soldiers to Haiti: security official - CBC

Armoured vehicles carrying special forces from El Salvador are seen on the move in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on Monday. (www/AFP/Getty Images)Social SharingEl Salvador has sent about 1,000 troops to Haiti after four Salvadoran members of a UN-backed force went missing during a gang ambush on the outskirts of ‌the capital of Port-au-Prince, a security official in Haiti told Reuters on Tuesday.

The arrival of the flights carrying troops in recent days dramatically expands the Central American nation's role in Haiti's long-standing gang conflict. Yet it remains unclear who will command the new Salvadoran contingent, how long it will stay in Haiti or whether more forces will follow.

The Haitian and Salvadoran governments did not immediately respond to ​requests for comment. The security official in Haiti spoke on condition of anonymity ​due to the sensitive security situation.

The surge in deployments comes as the UN-backed Gang Suppression Force (GSF) has reached about 2,000 troops — just over a third of the planned size a year into its mandate — with limited impacts on ​Haitian security.

GSF did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Armed gangs in Haiti have meanwhile ⁠expanded their influence over the capital ⁠and surrounding regions through extortion and brutal attacks that have displaced nearly ‌1.5 million people.

Haiti's leadership has since 2022 requested international security support, despite the country's ⁠fraught history of foreign intervention. Gang influence grew rapidly after the 2021 assassination of ‌president Jovenel Moïse, deepening a security crisis that has caused authorities to repeatedly delay elections.

Pierre Esperance, head of Haiti's National Human Rights Defense Network, welcomed the unusually rapid Salvadoran deployment and said he hoped it would help stop gangs from terrorizing civilians. But he warned that any operation must avoid harming residents trapped in gang-held neighbourhoods.

"Not everybody living in gang-controlled areas are gangsters," he said.

Salvadoran President ​Nayib Bukele last week announced a military operation to recover the missing Salvadorans, who ⁠have been unaccounted for ⁠since leaping from a burning vehicle during an ambush. He has not said how many troops would be sent.

The U.S. provided C-130 military ⁠transport jets to help move Salvadoran troops to Haiti, a U.S. military official said.

Additional commercial and military flights between San Salvador and Port-au-Prince were visible on flight tracking website Flightradar24 and were also reported by the Miami Herald.

A photo posted on X on Tuesday by a lawmaker from Bukele's ruling party showed a plane carrying uniformed soldiers, some taking selfies.

Bukele has won broad support at home through a hardline anti-crime campaign that several right-wing governments in the Americas have sought to emulate. Human ​rights groups, however, warn that the crackdown has come at the cost of due process and has been linked to hundreds of deaths in custody.

Bukele said the missing Salvadorans were air force technicians returning to base from a market and that he believed they were being held hostage by criminal groups.

No Haitian gang ⁠leader has taken responsibility for the attack. Gang leader Wilson Joseph of 400 Mawozo has released videos in which he denies holding the Salvadorans hostage and rejects responsibility for what happened to ‌them.

Prior to the ambush, El Salvador had deployed at least 124 troops as part of the UN-backed Gang Suppression Force, according to a UN report.

Alongside the international mission, Haiti's government has also hired a private military company run by Blackwater founder and ally of U.S. President Donald Trump, Erik Prince, that has carried out controversial anti-gang drone operations since 2025.

Luis Contreras, a Salvadoran security and organized crime analyst, said he expected that at least some of the new troops would operate outside the UN-backed mission's chain of command and could co-ordinate with Prince's firm.

"The UN has lacked the political will to resolve the issue of the gangs in Haiti," he said. "Once the whereabouts of the four members have been established, they will have to assess whether to engage in a direct and protracted confrontation."