El Salvador’s Bukele touts military intervention in Haiti

El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele has posted videos of heavily armed soldiers from his country patrolling streets in Haiti and being greeted by locals.

“Gather your gangs so we can go fight with them,” Bukele wrote in a post on X on Wednesday.

The posts come as Haitian authorities say they have found the vehicle used by four Salvadoran aviation technicians who were attacked by gangs more than two weeks ago, but have yet to find the men themselves.

The country’s national police posted photos of the burned remains of a truck it said was used by the group, found in the Santo neighbourhood in the Croix-des-Bouquets community outside the capital of Port-au-Prince on Tuesday. The area, like much of the capital, has been under the control of gangs, which authorities are struggling to wrest control from.

Police were conducting a joint operation along with the United Nations-backed multinational Gang Suppression Force (GSF) and Salvadoran troops when they found the vehicles.

The disappearance of the four men on October 18 prompted the right-wing leader of El Salvador to dispatch more than 2,000 troops along with military hardware to the Caribbean nation.

Since being elected to office in 2019, Bukele has instituted a harsh crackdown on crime in El Salvador, jailing tens of thousands of people and imposing a state of emergency that rights groups say has suspended many civil rights.

On Tuesday, Bukele posted a video he said showed Salvadoran military helicopters opening fire on gangs attacking GSF soldiers from Chad.

“The gangs no longer have the upper hand,” he wrote.

In another post, Bukele said Salvadoran forces were there to help Haitians free themselves from the gangs. “We are right there beside you,” he wrote.

The presence of the troops has raised concerns among some about who is responsible for the use of force in the country.

Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for the office of the UN Secretary-General, told reporters in New York this week that only about 200 of the Salvadoran soldiers fell under the GSF’s jurisdiction.

“What is important is that any security operation be done within the framework of international human rights law, of international law, and that people’s rights need to be respected as you conduct security operations,” Dujarric said.

Haiti’s Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aime, though, has assured the public the foreign forces are operating under Haitian authority.

“The international forces did not come to replace the state. They came to support it, to reinforce our capacity,” he said on Tuesday, speaking alongside the Salvadoran commander in charge of the country’s troops as well as Haitian and GSF commanders.

The leader of one gang, the 400 Mawozo, told the Associated Press news agency that he had written to the UN Secretary-General asking for an opportunity for dialogue. Wilson Joseph, best known as Lanmo Sanjou, said he was concerned about the killing of civilians given the surge in fighting.

Haiti has been without an elected government since 2021, when its last elected president, Jovenel Moise, was assassinated. Since then, successive transitional governments have tried to impose enough order to hold fresh elections.

Last month, the country’s nine-member Provisional Electoral Council announced it would delay national elections, pushing the first round of voting from December 13 to July 18, 2027. A second round of voting is also scheduled for October 4, 2027.

Authorities have pushed to register voters, with fewer than one million registered so far, out of some 6.5 million Haitians who hold identification cards that would make them eligible. Roads controlled by gangs have made it difficult for officials to reach registration centres, and violence has forced many Haitians from their homes.

The violence has also interrupted the delivery of food and other aid, leaving some 5.94 million Haitians facing acute hunger, according to an international food security assessment released last month.

Last week, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said an uptick in fighting since the disappearance of the Salvadorans was having an impact on civilians in Port-au-Prince.

The group said 30 people, including women and children, had been injured in the eight days following the disappearance on October 18, by heavy gunfire and drone explosions.

The ongoing fighting had blocked civilians’ access to roads and bridges, and made travel to healthcare facilities “extremely risky” for people wounded in the conflict. The addition of international forces, the group said, was expected to make the situation worse.

“We fear that this armed conflict will claim even more victims, and displace even more people in the coming days, particularly with the arrival of additional international security forces,” Davina Hayles, MSF head of mission in Haiti, said in a statement.