El Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele has launched a military operation in a bid to rescue four of his country’s soldiers who were kidnapped by out-of-control gangs in Haiti.
The soldiers, who were working as aviation technicians as part of the United Nations mission to Haiti, were attacked on Sunday by a gang in the Santo area of Croix-des-Bouquets, a suburb of the capital of Port-au-Prince. The gang set the soldiers’ armored vehicle on fire.
El Salvador has—along with Jamaica, Guatemala, and Chad—provided troops as part of a U.N.-backed Gang Suppression Force in Haiti, which was approved in October 2025.
On Wednesday, Bukele posted on X a message and a warning to the leaders of the gang that was holding the men.
“We have a single objective: to bring our four compatriots back home alive, without any harm,” Bukele wrote. “However, I want you, the gang leaders, to understand one thing very clearly: today’s attack is nothing compared to what is coming if we do not get all four hostages back alive.”
Not ‘Empty Threats’: Bukele
“And do not take our word for empty threats,” Bukele said. “We have already finished with the gangs in El Salvador, and we can finish with you too.”
Bukele said the abducted soldiers were not “combatants.”
“They are aviation technicians who are part of our mission in Haiti, within the framework of an international mission,” he said. “Our mission consists only of pilots and technical personnel, whose primary job is to carry out medical evacuations and save lives, not to wage war. However, they were kidnapped in a cowardly manner while returning after buying food at a market in the area.”
Bukele was first elected in 2019, and after taking tough action against El Salvador’s gangs during the pandemic, he declared a state of emergency on March 27, 2022, to combat a wave of gang violence that left 87 people dead in one weekend.
The state of emergency has been renewed more than 50 times, and in April this year, a mass trial of 486 alleged members of El Salvador’s most notorious gang, the Mara Salvatrucha or MS-13, got underway.
The abduction of the four Salvadorans is the first major attack on the Gang Suppression Force.
The Santo area, where the Salvadorans’ vehicle was targeted, is controlled by several gangs, including Chèn Méchan, Kraze Baryé, and 400 Mawozo.
Kraze Baryé’s leader, Vitel’homme Innocent, and Lanmo Sanjou, who leads 400 Mawozo, have both been sanctioned by the United States and the U.N.
US Reward for Gang Leader
The U.S. State Department has also offered a $2 million reward for the capture of Innocent, who was indicted in 2022 after his gang kidnapped 16 U.S. Christian missionaries and one Canadian and held them for ransom in October 2021.
Haiti’s government issued a news release on Wednesday evening that said a meeting was held at the prime minister’s office “to assess the ongoing interventions and determine the necessary measures to strengthen operations, in close collaboration with the Gang Repression Force.”
“The release of the abducted soldiers is an absolute priority, and all necessary resources are being mobilized to achieve this goal,” the government said.
When the U.N. initially passed a resolution creating the Gang Suppression Force, there were three abstentions—China, Russia, and Pakistan.
The Gang Suppression Force was given a six-month extension through March 2027 from the U.N. Security Council.
Earlier this month, El Salvador passed a law extending its armed forces’ participation in the force for 12 months and expanding its role beyond medical evacuations.
The U.N. says gang violence has displaced nearly 1.5 million people in Haiti, with more than 5,700 people killed or injured between January and mid-September 2026, and more than 230 people were kidnapped in the same period.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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