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El Salvador’s Military Operation in Haiti Raises Questions Amid Civilian Deaths
UNA-Haiti denounces deadly operations in densely populated neighborhoods as questions mount over the mission’s objectives.
On Wednesday, the United Nations Association of Haiti (UNA-Haiti), an organization representing the Haitian diaspora community, denounced military operations carried out by Salvadoran forces on Haitian territory, saying they are causing the deaths of innocent civilians.
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Bukele Says El Salvador Could Dismantle Haiti’s Gangs
In the letter addressed to United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, UNA-Haiti detailed that Salvadoran troops have been conducting heavy aerial bombardments, helicopter gunship raids and assaults with heavy weapons in densely populated neighborhoods such as Croix-des-Bouquets, Canaan and La Plaine du Cul-de-Sac since Oct. 22, 2026.
“Children are being killed not by gangs, but by foreign bombs. These operations do not represent a security solution, but rather a massacre of innocent people,” the organization stressed, warning that families are being forced to hide under their beds to protect themselves from crossfire.
The military escalation is a response to an ambush suffered by the Salvadoran contingent belonging to Task Force Freedom II. On Oct. 18, an armored vehicle carrying four aviation technicians returning from a food supply run was attacked with explosives in the Santo area (Croix-des-Bouquets). The personnel managed to escape from the burning vehicle, but all contact with them has been lost since then.
In response to the incident, El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele announced a massive deployment on Oct. 21 to rescue the military personnel, issuing a stern message in Haitian Creole on social media directed at gang leaders.
He demanded the safe return of the hostages and warned that what had happened so far was nothing compared with what was “yet to come,” urging them not to take his words as “empty threats.”
El Salvador deploys 2,000 troops to Haiti as interim government cancels elections, again
— Joshua Collins (@InvisiblesMuros) October 30, 2026
Bukele promises to “destroy” gangs if medical personnel are not found
LATEST for @pirate_wire pic.twitter.com/IsWMlJWukd
The Salvadorian Operation Is Full of Unanswered Questions
El Salvador’s military operation in Haiti, involving more than 2,000 troops on the ground searching for four missing soldiers, raises numerous questions, including the campaign’s real objective, its allies and the role of the Gang Suppression Force (GSF), established under a United Nations Security Council mandate.
The international community has attempted to resolve Haiti’s crisis through several multinational missions. However, Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, citing the search for the four Salvadoran military personnel who were part of the GSF and have been missing for nearly two weeks, decided to pursue a solution unilaterally.
According to various experts, the incident is one of the operation’s “gray areas,” as it remains unclear what actually happened on Oct. 18, when the vehicle carrying the Salvadorans was attacked and set on fire on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince.
“We need to determine whether this is simply about rescuing people whose identities we still do not know, or whether it is something broader,” said former diplomat Edwin Paraison, who served as Haiti’s consul general in the Dominican Republic.
One of the unanswered questions concerns what happened that day to trigger the Salvadoran military operation, since the identities of the four missing “aviation technicians” have not been officially made public to date.
“Soldiers, in the times we live in, maintain constant contact with their families, so it is very unusual that in El Salvador no one has been concerned about contacting a family member of these missing individuals,” he said.
🇸🇻🇭🇹🚨 HAÏTI — Le SALVADOR a envoyé des SOLDATS en Haïti après l’enlèvement d’agents humanitaires par des GANGS.
— KRONIK Insights (@KRONIKInsights) October 23, 2026
Une opération de sécurisation et de sauvetage est en cours. ⚠️ pic.twitter.com/DRAZrCDur2
The text reads, “Haiti: El Salvador has sent soldiers to Haiti following the kidnapping of humanitarian workers by gangs. A security and rescue operation is underway.”
What Is the Scope of Bukele’s Operation?
The mission’s actual scope is also unknown, although Bukele said Thursday that it “is not an operation against the Haitian people, nor an invasion of the country of Haiti,” because El Salvador has no interest other than ensuring that its four aviation technicians “return home.”
However, the scale of the deployment has drawn attention because, in just 10 days, Bukele assembled an expeditionary force that already doubles the number of personnel the Gang Suppression Force has managed to assemble in a year.
The GSF is not a peacekeeping mission in the strict sense of the word, but rather a military component created to help Haitian authorities neutralize armed gangs, protect infrastructure and facilitate humanitarian access.
The United Nations Security Council approved a contingent of 5,500 personnel from several countries for the GSF, of whom just over 1,000 have arrived in Haiti — approximately 100 of them originally from El Salvador.
In an operation shrouded in secrecy, the Salvadoran troops’ modus operandi is also unclear. It is not known whether they are working jointly with the GSF, led by Mongolian Maj. Gen. Edernebat Batsuuri, or whether they have their own operational plan.
Last week, the GSF announced the arrival in Port-au-Prince of the first Salvadoran contingent soldiers “to support the search and security operations underway,” without providing further details.
Bukele, meanwhile, said Thursday that the search for the four Salvadorans was giving gangs “a lesson — those gangs that make the Haitian people suffer, that kill the people they love, that prevent them from living normal, free lives without fear.”
Pou chèf gang yo ak manm gang yo k ap kenbe kat konpatriyòt nou yo an otaj ann Ayiti:
— Nayib Bukele (@nayibbukele) October 21, 2026
Mesye nou kidnape yo pa konbatan. Yo se teknisyen nan domèn avyasyon ki fè pati misyon nou ann Ayiti, nan kad yon misyon entènasyonal. Misyon nou an gen sèlman pilòt ak pèsonèl teknik, ki gen… pic.twitter.com/BNKbWTAQQp
President Nayib Bukele’s text reads, “To the gang leaders and gang members holding our four compatriots hostage in Haiti:
Gentlemen, the individuals you have kidnapped are not combatants. They are aviation technicians serving as part of our mission in Haiti—a mission that is international in scope.
Our team consists solely of pilots and technical personnel, whose primary role is to conduct medical evacuations and save lives—not to wage war. Yet, you carried out a cowardly kidnapping, seizing them as they were returning from purchasing food at a local market.
For this reason, we have launched a military operation today to rescue them. We have one objective and one objective only: to bring our four compatriots home, alive and unharmed.
However, I want you—the gang leaders—to understand one thing very clearly: today’s attack is nothing compared to what will follow if you do not release the four hostages alive. And do not mistake our words for empty threats.
We have already dealt with the gangs in El Salvador, and we are fully capable of doing the same to you. There is still time to avoid this. Return our four compatriots to us, alive and unharmed, and everything will return to how it was before the kidnapping. The choice is in your hands.”
Who Provides Logistical Support?
Another gray area concerns the support the Salvadoran president is receiving from other countries because several U.S. military aircraft have landed in recent days at Toussaint Louverture International Airport in Port-au-Prince, which has been closed to international commercial flights because of the violence.
“We have not come to Haiti to make money; nobody is paying us for this. We have come to fight the evil ones,” Bukele said, adding that his country is “almost” the only one “paying for this operation,” although he acknowledged receiving “a little logistical help from some other countries.”
Nevertheless, U.S. analyst Jake Johnston, a researcher on Latin America and the Caribbean, maintains that “the United States and Colombia have collaborated on logistics,” while the Dominican Republic “has offered its support and is serving as a logistical hub for the delivery of helicopters and other equipment.”
Coincidentally or not, a meeting of the Conference of the Americas Coalition Against Cartels (A3C) was held this week in Santo Domingo. The meeting was organized by the Dominican Republic together with the U.S. Department of War to strengthen regional cooperation against threats posed by transnational organized crime and drug trafficking.
teleSUR/ JF
Source: EFE
