Four Salvadoran soldiers missing after gang ambush on UN-backed Haiti force

Four Salvadoran soldiers serving with the UN-backed Gang Suppression Force in Haiti are missing after gangs ambushed and torched their armoured vehicle near Port-au-Prince on Sunday.

The air-force aviation technicians were returning to base from a market outside the capital when gangs hit their vehicle with explosives, the Salvadoran military said; the four leapt out and contact was lost.

US Ambassador Mike Waltz told the UN Security Council on Monday: “These thugs attacked their armored vehicle with hundreds of bullets and explosives. By God’s grace, we believe four of the men survived, but they do remain unaccounted for.”

El Salvador’s Egriselda Lopez told the Council that contact efforts were continuing and condemned the attack. UN chief Antonio Guterres’s spokesman Stephane Dujarric said: “We condemn such kidnapping and we call for their immediate and safe release.”

Rescue helicopters came under fire and further land and air attempts “have been hampered by the intensity of the fighting”, the Salvadoran military said via force spokesman Igor Rugwiza. The ambush was at Santo village in Croix-des-Bouquets, on the capital’s north-eastern outskirts, held by the Chen Mechan and 400 Mawozo gangs.

The GSF has deployed about 2,000 of a planned 5,500 personnel from six countries, per special representative Jack Christofides — the first major attack on the force since it began operations this year, Al Jazeera notes. Gang violence has displaced nearly 1.5 million and killed more than 21,000 in four years, Reuters and AFP report.