El Salvador sends over 2,000 troops to Haiti to find four missing technicians

The deployment

El Salvador's foreign ministry said on Wednesday, 28 October, that President Nayib Bukele had telephoned Haitian Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aimé and that San Salvador intends to send more than 2,000 soldiers to Haiti. Fils-Aimé's office confirmed the call in its own statement, saying the two leaders had reaffirmed their commitment to closer coordination within the Gang Suppression Force, especially to support the rescue effort. Le Nouvelliste, citing a Haitian government source, put the number of Salvadoran soldiers already in Haiti at 1,300. Flight-tracking records show at least three Boeing 747-400 aircraft landed in Haiti from San Salvador on 27 October, with military transport planes from the US Southern Command and the Colombian Air Force also supporting the movement.

The ministry's statement described the operation in these terms:

“El Salvador will continue the operational deployment of more than two thousand soldiers to rescue the four Salvadoran aviation technicians.”

The four missing technicians

Four Salvadoran aviation technicians serving with the UN-backed Gang Suppression Force went missing on 18 October, when their armoured vehicle was ambushed on the way back to base. The attack took place in Croix-des-Bouquets, an area on the edge of Port-au-Prince controlled by armed groups, and NOS reports that explosives hit the vehicle before the four men ran from the burning wreck. Whether a gang is holding them is unknown, and no group has claimed responsibility. In the week of 26 October Haiti handed four bodies to special forces, saying they belonged to the missing men, but Bukele said they did not match and that one was a child's and another wore a different country's military uniform. In an X post in the week of 19 October, Bukele threatened to wipe out Haiti's gangs, as he says he did in El Salvador, unless the Salvadorans were released.

A thinly staffed mission

The Gang Suppression Force has operated in Haiti since April, but it is not an official UN peacekeeping force, so its size depends on what countries voluntarily contribute. NOS counts about 2,000 troops from Chad, Sri Lanka, Mongolia, Guatemala, Jamaica and El Salvador, against an original planned strength of 5,500. The UN Security Council extended the mandate at the end of September, to March 2027. On 26 October the force's representative, Jack Christofides, told the Security Council that gangs were testing the force, and the UN's top representative in Haiti said the gangs were adapting their tactics more and more. The UN says more than 5,700 people were killed in gang-related violence in Haiti this year, and BBC reports armed gangs control much of the capital.

Troops in force (approx.)2,000

Authorized strength5,500

Troops in force (approx.)

2000 soldiers

Authorized strength

5500 soldiers

Data from the article text

Elections pushed back

Haiti's Electoral Council had set the long-awaited elections for 13 December, a date it chose in July, but at the start of October it said it was revising the calendar without naming a new date. On Wednesday the council published a new timetable with a first round of presidential and legislative elections on 18 July 2027, followed by a second round, and local elections on 4 October 2027. Haiti has not held an election since 2016, and transitional leaders have cited insecurity, as gangs extend the territory they control, for repeated delays. Jovenel Moïse, the last president, was assassinated in 2021, and BBC says the political vacuum that followed has worsened the gang crisis.