By Sarah Morland
Oct 27 (Reuters) - El Salvador has sent about 1,000 troops to Haiti after four Salvadoran members of a UN-backed security mission went missing in a gang ambush on the outskirts of the capital on October 18, a security official in Haiti told Reuters on Tuesday.
The troops' arrival aboard flights in recent days dramatically expands the Central American nation's role in Haiti's long-standing gang conflict. Yet it remains unclear who will command the new Salvadoran contingent, how long it will stay
in Haiti or whether more forces will follow.
Neither the Haitian nor Salvadoran government immediately responded to requests for comment. The official in Haiti spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the security situation.
The deployment comes as the UN-backed Gang Suppression Force has reached about 2,000 personnel, just over a third of its planned strength a year into its mandate, with little improvement in Haiti's security.
Armed gangs in Haiti have meanwhile expanded their influence over the capital and surrounding regions through extortion and brutal attacks that have displaced nearly 1.5 million people.
Haiti's leaders have sought international security support since 2022, despite the country's fraught history of foreign intervention. Gangs' influence grew rapidly after the 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moise, deepening an insecurity crisis that has caused authorities to repeatedly delay elections.
Pierre Esperance, head of Haiti's National Human Rights Defense Network, welcomed the unusually rapid Salvadoran deployment and said he hoped it would help stop gangs from terrorizing civilians. But he warned that any operation must avoid harming residents trapped in gang-held neighborhoods.
"Not everybody living in gang-controlled areas are gangsters," he said.
President Nayib Bukele last week announced a military operation to recover the missing Salvadorans, who remain unaccounted for since jumping from a burning vehicle during the ambush. He has not said how many troops would be sent.
The US provided C-130 transport aircraft to help move Salvadoran troops to Haiti, a US military official said.
Additional commercial and military flights between San Salvador and Port-au-Prince were visible on flight-tracking site Flightradar24 and were also reported by the Miami Herald.
A photo posted on X on Tuesday by a lawmaker from Bukele's ruling party showed a plane carrying uniformed soldiers, some taking selfies.
NO CLAIM OF RESPONSIBILITY
Bukele has built strong domestic support through a hardline anti-crime campaign that several right-wing governments in the Americas have sought to emulate. Human rights groups however warn that the crackdown has come at the cost of due process and has been linked to hundreds of deaths in custody.
Bukele said the missing Salvadorans were air force technicians, returning to base from a market, and that he believed they were being held hostage by criminal groups.
No Haitian gang has claimed responsibility for the ambush. Wilson Joseph, leader of the 400 Mawozo gang, has released videos denying that his group is holding the Salvadorans or was involved in the attack.
Before the ambush, El Salvador had deployed at least 124 personnel to the force. Bukele said they were pilots and technicians sent to evacuate wounded personnel, not combatants.
Alongside the international mission, Haiti's government has also hired a private military company run by Blackwater founder Erik Prince - an ally of US President Donald Trump - which has since 2025 carried out controversial anti-gang drone operations.
Luis Contreras, a Salvadoran security and organized crime analyst, said he expected that at least some of the new troops would operate outside the UN-backed mission's chain of command and could coordinate with Prince's firm.
"The UN has lacked the political will to resolve the issue of the gangs in Haiti," he said. "Once the whereabouts of the four members have been established, they will have to assess whether to engage in a direct and protracted confrontation."
(Reporting by Sarah Morland in Mexico City, Gerardo Arbaiza in San Salvador and Harold Isaac in Port-au-Prince; Editing by Daina Beth Solomon, Bill Berkrot and Jonathan Spicer )
