PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele says human remains delivered at a Haitian airport do not belong to the four Salvadoran soldiers who went missing after an ambush in Haiti, BBC News reported.
Bukele said a non-governmental organisation handed over four sets of remains, saying they were the missing men. But he said one set belonged to a child, one to a man considerably taller than the Salvadoran air technicians, and one to a person wearing a different army’s uniform. Identity documents found among the remains included a Gang Suppression Force card and a Chadian national ID, he said.
His comments poured skepticism on an earlier New York Times report, citing people close to the Salvadoran mission, that badly burned bodies found on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince on Saturday were thought to be the missing men, BBC News reported.
The soldiers were ambushed in Croix-des-Bouquets while serving with the UN-backed Gang Suppression Force. El Salvador has deployed about 450 soldiers to Haiti, according to Le Nouvelliste, and Bukele has said the men were there to “carry out medical evacuations and save lives, not to wage war.”
The United Nations says more than 5,700 people were killed or injured in Haiti’s gang violence between January 1 and September 11 this year.
Sources: BBC News, Nayib Bukele on X
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