Bukele says bodies delivered in Haiti are not missing Salvadoran hostages

El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele says four bodies delivered to Salvadoran special forces in Haiti are not those of the air technicians the troops were sent to recover. He said a nongovernmental organisation brought the remains to an airport in Haiti and presented them as the four missing Salvadorans.

Bukele said the remains included a child and a man whose height was considerably greater than that of the missing technicians. Another body was wearing part of a foreign army's uniform, he said. Identification documents and uniforms from other countries were also among the remains. Bukele published photographs of a Gang Suppression Force identification card alongside a corresponding national identity card from Chad.

The four technicians disappeared after heavily armed groups ambushed their armoured vehicle as they returned to camp. The attack took place in Croix-des-Bouquets, an area controlled by armed groups. The men were serving with the UN-backed Gang Suppression Force, or GSF, which is charged with confronting Haiti's worsening gang violence. No gang has claimed responsibility for their abduction.

Bukele dispatched a military contingent to Haiti on Thursday, saying its only purpose was to bring the four men home alive. Haitian newspaper Le Nouvelliste reported that around 450 soldiers had been deployed. According to the Salvadoran armed forces, helicopters were sent out after the abduction and several attempts were made to reach the location, but fighting in the area obstructed those efforts.

The president's account challenged an earlier New York Times report that bodies discovered outside the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince, on Saturday were believed to be those of the missing Salvadorans. The newspaper attributed that assessment to people close to the Salvadoran mission. It reported that the remains handed to the contingent were badly burned and would require medical examination to establish their identities.

The New York Times also cited an unnamed person briefed on the situation who offered a different explanation for the identification document Bukele had published. That source said the document belonged to a soldier who had lost it when he was injured.

Haiti has faced years of gang violence, with conditions deteriorating amid the political vacuum following the assassination of its president in 2021. The multinational force sent to confront the gangs has struggled to enter areas under their control. At the beginning of October, the UN said more than 5,700 people had been killed or injured by gangs or during operations against them between 1 January and 11 September this year.

Bukele said the missing Salvadoran personnel had principally been deployed to support humanitarian work. Their role, he said, was to “carry out medical evacuations and save lives, not to wage war”.