Bukele says bodies found in Haiti are not the four missing Salvadorans

El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele said on Saturday that four bodies handed over to Salvadoran forces in Haiti are not the four men who went missing after an ambush outside Port-au-Prince, contradicting a New York Times report that the bodies were believed to be theirs.

“They are not our men,” Bukele said in a post on X, hours after the Times reported that the bodies had been found and were believed to be those of the Salvadoran personnel (Reuters).

Bukele said the bodies handed over included a child, a man much taller than the Salvadorans, and a soldier from another country, and he shared photos of a soldier’s identification from Chad. The Associated Press, citing a Salvadoran government official, confirmed that the bodies found were not those of the missing men, who are aviation technicians rather than combat troops (AP via La Nación).

The four went missing on Sunday after jumping from a burning armoured vehicle that came under attack on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince while they were returning from a market to their base. Earlier in the week, Bukele said gangs were holding the four men and that El Salvador had launched a military operation to bring them back unharmed, with additional troops later deployed to support search and security operations.

No group has publicly claimed responsibility for the attack. Local media have linked the ambush to gangs operating in the area, including Chen Mechan and 400 Mawozo.

The ambush was the first major attack on the Gang Suppression Force, a UN-authorised multinational mission that began operations in Haiti this year; the mission declined to comment. The force has about 2,000 troops on the ground, well below its authorised ceiling of 5,500.