Bukele Dares Haiti's Gangs to Fight as Salvadoran Troops Hit the Streets

El Salvador's president is picking a fight in public. Nayib Bukele posted videos Wednesday of his country's heavily armed soldiers walking Haitian streets and being greeted by residents, along with a blunt message on X: gather your gangs so we can fight them. A day earlier, he shared footage he said showed Salvadoran military helicopters firing on gangs attacking soldiers from Chad serving with the UN-backed Gang Suppression Force. The gangs, he wrote, no longer have the upper hand.

The aggressive posture follows a still-unresolved disappearance. Four Salvadoran aviation technicians were attacked by gangs on October 18 and have not been found, though Haitian national police said Tuesday they had recovered the burned wreckage of a truck the group used. Officers spotted it in the Santo neighbourhood of Croix-des-Bouquets, outside Port-au-Prince, during a joint operation with the Gang Suppression Force and Salvadoran troops. The area, like much of the capital, sits under gang control.

That disappearance triggered the deployment of more than 2,000 Salvadoran troops plus military hardware to Haiti. Bukele, elected in 2019, built his reputation on a brutal anti-crime crackdown at home that has jailed tens of thousands and kept a state of emergency in place — a measure rights groups say has stripped away civil liberties.

The new boots on Haitian ground have raised a thorny question: who is actually in charge of the shooting? Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for the UN Secretary-General's office, told reporters in New York this week that only about 200 of the Salvadoran soldiers fall under the Gang Suppression Force's jurisdiction. He stressed that any security operation must stay within international human rights law and international law, and that people's rights have to be respected.

Haiti's Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aime pushed back on concerns, insisting the foreign forces answer to Haitian authority. Speaking Tuesday alongside the Salvadoran commander of the troops, along with Haitian and GSF commanders, he said the international forces did not arrive to replace the state but to support it and reinforce its capacity.

One gang leader is asking for a different kind of conversation. Wilson Joseph, known as Lanmo Sanjou and head of the 400 Mawozo gang, told the Associated Press he had written to the UN Secretary-General requesting dialogue, saying he worries about civilians being killed as the fighting intensifies. The toll is already steep: Doctors Without Borders said 30 people, including women and children, were wounded in the eight days after October 18 by heavy gunfire and drone explosions, and called travel to hospitals extremely risky. Its Haiti mission head, Davina Hayles, warned the arrival of more international security forces could displace even more people. Haiti has had no elected government since President Jovenel Moise was assassinated in 2021, and its electoral council has delayed the first round of voting, now slated for July 18, 2027. Fewer than one million voters are registered out of roughly 6.5 million eligible, and some 5.94 million Haitians face acute hunger.