2,000 Salvadoran troops take quarters in Haiti to help fight gangs

A convoy of heavily armed Salvadoran troops was seen in the Tabarre neighborhood of Port-au-Prince, Haiti on Friday.

They are part of 2,000 troops that El Salvador President Nayib Bukele deployed to the embattled country this week.

The deployment of Salvadoran troops followed a gang attack on four Salvadoran members of the Gang Suppression Force who went missing.

The Haitian government says they were abducted.

Bukele wrote on X Thursday that his country “only wants to bring home the four missing aviation technicians.”

“This is not an operation against the Haitian people, nor an invasion of the country of Haiti,” he wrote 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.”

Haiti’s government issued a statement saying the two countries are reinforcing cooperation within the framework of the U.N.-backed gang suppression force but experts have questioned exactly what role the Salvadoran troops are playing in Haiti and an escalation of the violence.

Social media in Haiti was awash this week with videos of gang leaders defying El Salvador’s president and promising to “outgun” his troops, but no one has claimed responsibility for the attack.

The convoy seen in Port-au-Prince on Friday included new armored vehicles, with soldiers carrying automatic weapons.

More than 5,700 people have been killed or wounded in Haiti from January to mid-September, according to the U.N.