Credit : BRICS News's X
El Salvador has sent about 1,000 soldiers to Haiti, BRICS News reported on October 28, 2026, in a sharp escalation of its military presence in the Caribbean nation after four Salvadoran troops went missing following a gang ambush near the capital, Port-au-Prince.
“El Salvador deploys ~1,000 soldiers to Haiti,” BRICS News said in a post on X, sharing images of heavily armed Salvadoran troops and President Nayib Bukele. The figure matches information from a security official in Haiti, who told Reuters on Tuesday, October 27, that around 1,000 soldiers had arrived in a string of deployments in recent days.
The deployments followed an attack on October 18, when four Salvadoran aviation technicians serving with the United Nations-backed Gang Suppression Force came under heavy gang gunfire on the outskirts of the capital. The Miami Herald reported that the men had been shopping at a supermarket in Santo, part of Croix-des-Bouquets, and were returning to camp in an armoured vehicle when gunmen from the Chen Mechan gang opened fire and used an explosive device to set the vehicle alight. The Armed Forces of El Salvador said the soldiers managed to escape the vehicle, but they have been unaccounted for since.
Mr Bukele announced a military operation to recover the missing men and threatened a more forceful response if they were not released alive and unharmed, according to The Associated Press. El Salvador first deployed 100 special forces soldiers on October 22, and officials said more would follow.
The Gang Suppression Force confirmed that a Salvadoran contingent had arrived in Port-au-Prince to support search and security operations in Plaine du Cul-de-Sac, in close co-ordination with the Haitian National Police. It urged residents of Santo and surrounding communities to stay away from areas where operations were under way.
Flights carrying soldiers and military equipment continued to land at Toussaint Louverture International Airport over the weekend and on Monday. The Miami Herald said the number of Salvadoran personnel had reached 450 by Saturday, with hundreds more expected. A US military official told Reuters that US Southern Command had provided C-130 transport aircraft to help bring some of the troops to Haiti.
It remains unclear who will command the new Salvadoran contingent or how long it will stay. Mr Bukele has not said how many soldiers he plans to send, and his office did not respond to Reuters’ requests for comment. The Miami Herald reported that he is seeking to deploy more troops able to operate independently of the multinational mission, answering directly to his own commander on the ground.
Before the ambush, El Salvador had at least 124 troops in Haiti as part of the Gang Suppression Force, according to a UN report cited by Reuters. Mr Bukele later said they were pilots and technicians sent to evacuate injured soldiers, not to fight.
The response has raised questions among analysts. Romain Le Cour, director of the Haiti Observatory at the Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime, told El País that no one had yet explained why the four soldiers were travelling unescorted at noon on a Sunday in a gang-controlled area. Armed gangs continue to control large parts of Port-au-Prince and its surroundings, where they compete for territory.
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