PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele says gangs in Haiti are holding four Salvadoran members of the U.N.-backed Gang Suppression Force hostage, and that he has launched a military operation to bring them home, BBC News, AP and CBC News reported.
The four went missing Sunday after gangs ambushed their armored vehicle in the Croix-des-Bouquets area outside Port-au-Prince as they returned to base from buying food at a market. The vehicle caught fire after being hit by explosives, and the men fled. No gang has claimed responsibility.
Bukele addressed the gang leaders directly on X in a post in Haitian Creole, saying the men are aviation technicians, not combatants, and that El Salvador’s mission “consists only of pilots and technical personnel, whose primary job is to carry out medical evacuations and save lives, not to wage war”:
“Today’s attack is nothing compared to what is coming if they do not release the four hostages alive. And do not take our words as empty threats,” he wrote, according to AP via NPR. If the men are returned unharmed, he said, “everything will go back to the way it was before the kidnapping.”
Haiti’s government called the abduction an “absolute priority” and said “all necessary resources are being mobilized.” The Gang Suppression Force said it had engaged gang members with helicopter support and that early reports indicated several gang members were killed, BBC News reported.
The force, which includes troops from Chad, Jamaica, Guatemala and other countries, has more than 2,000 personnel on the ground, according to AP.
Sources: BBC News, AP via NPR, CBC News
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