Around 1,000 soldiers from El Salvador have been sent to Haiti in a string of deployments in recent days, after four Salvadoran members of the UN-backed force in the country went missing, a Haitian security official told Reuters on Tuesday. The rapid build-up, flown in part aboard United States military transport aircraft, marks a sharp escalation in a mission that began as a small support contingent and now risks becoming a far larger Central American military operation on Haitian soil.
Reuters reported on Tuesday, October 27, that around 1,000 soldiers from El Salvador have been sent to Haiti in a series of deployments over recent days. The figure came from a security official in Haiti, not from an official announcement in San Salvador.
The trigger was an ambush on October 18 on the outskirts of the capital, Port-au-Prince. Four Salvadorans serving with the UN-backed Gang Suppression Force have been unaccounted for ever since, after leaping from a burning vehicle during the attack. Bukele announced last week that his government would launch a military operation to recover them.
Flight-tracking data reviewed by Reuters added texture to the airlift. An Ecuadorean commercial airline, Aeroregional, scheduled further direct flights to Haiti on Tuesday, according to Flightradar24 data, even though there are usually no direct flights between the two countries. Aeroregional did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A US military official confirmed that the US Southern Command had provided C-130 military transport jets to partially help bring the Salvadoran troops to Haiti.
Haiti has gone without elected leaders for years, and its transitional government has struggled to rally foreign support against armed gangs that have taken control of much of the capital and surrounding regions. The violence has displaced nearly 1.5 million people, and successive transitional governments have postponed elections amid continuing insecurity.
The Gang Suppression Force is the UN-backed mission meant to help Haitian police retake ground from the gangs. A year into its mandate it has reached only about 2,000 troops, just over a third of its planned size, with limited impact on security, according to reporting on the force. Before the October 18 ambush, El Salvador had deployed at least 124 troops as part of that force, according to a UN report.
Bukele later said those earlier Salvadorans were pilots and technicians sent to evacuate injured soldiers, not to fight. The new contingent is different in scale: roughly 1,000 soldiers would multiply El Salvador's presence in Haiti several times over, and its command structure and duration remain publicly undefined.
Haiti's government has meanwhile also contracted a private military company run by Erik Prince, the Blackwater founder and ally of US President Donald Trump, which has run anti-gang drone operations since 2025 while the country awaited more deployments for the Gang Suppression Force.
The El Salvador troops in Haiti now represent one of the largest single-country commitments to the troubled mission, and the deployment carries political weight far beyond its numbers. Bukele has won broad support at home through tough-on-crime policies that several other right-wing governments in the Americas have sought to emulate, while human rights groups say that approach has come at the expense of due process and hundreds of deaths in custody.
For Bukele, the Haiti operation is also personal and political: the recovery of four missing airmen has become a test of whether his security model can be exported. For Haiti, the arrival of a large, battle-tested Salvadoran contingent could shift the balance in Port-au-Prince, but it also raises questions about sovereignty, command and accountability when a foreign force operates alongside, or outside, the UN-backed mission.
The Dominican Republic, the only country to share a land border with Haiti, is already involved. President Luis Abinader said at a press conference on Monday that he was prepared to provide logistical support to the Salvadoran arrivals, a signal that the operation has regional backing even as its formal chain of command stays unclear.
Bukele has said the four missing Salvadorans were air force technicians returning to base from a market, and that he believes they are being held hostage by criminal groups. His government has framed the new deployment as a recovery operation, not a new war.
No Haitian gang leader has taken responsibility for the October 18 attack. Wilson Joseph, leader of the 400 Mawozo gang, has released videos in which he denies holding the Salvadorans hostage and rejects responsibility for what happened to them.
Dominican President Luis Abinader, speaking on Monday, said he was prepared to provide logistical support to the Salvadoran arrivals, positioning the Dominican Republic as a staging partner for the operation.
The US role, confirmed by a US military official to Reuters, is logistical rather than combat: Southern Command C-130 transport jets helped bring some of the troops to Haiti.
The deployment matters for three reasons. First, it tests whether a foreign military surge can succeed where the under-strength Gang Suppression Force has struggled, in a capital where gangs control large areas and 1.5 million people have been displaced. Second, it deepens the United States' indirect involvement in Haiti's security crisis, through Southern Command airlift, at a moment when Washington is already running a lethal campaign against alleged drug boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific. Third, it sets a precedent: if a Bukele-style expeditionary operation recovers its missing soldiers and pushes gangs back, other governments in the region may seek to copy it, with or without a UN mandate.
The risks are equally clear. A large contingent operating without a publicly stated command structure, timeline or rules of engagement could clash with Haitian forces, the Gang Suppression Force or rival gangs, and any civilian casualties would land on both San Salvador and Port-au-Prince.
The immediate questions are practical: whether more Salvadoran flights arrive in the coming days, whether Bukele publicly states a troop ceiling and a command arrangement, and whether the Gang Suppression Force formally absorbs the new contingent or leaves it operating in parallel. Flight-tracking and official statements in the next 48 hours should show whether the 1,000 figure is the full deployment or only its first wave.
Diplomatically, attention will turn to the UN and to Haiti's transitional authorities, who must decide how to present a large bilateral deployment inside a mission that was supposed to be multilateral.
Above all, the search for the four missing Salvadorans continues. Until they are found, or their fate is established, the operation has no natural end, and the pressure on Bukele to show results will only grow.
Around 1,000 soldiers have been sent in a string of deployments in recent days, according to a Haitian security official who spoke to Reuters on October 27. Bukele has not publicly confirmed a total.
Four Salvadoran members of the UN-backed Gang Suppression Force went missing after a gang ambush outside Port-au-Prince on October 18. Bukele announced a military operation to recover them, saying he believes they are being held hostage.
The US Southern Command provided C-130 military transport jets to partially help bring the Salvadoran troops to Haiti, according to a US military official. The confirmed US role so far is transport, not combat.
It remains unclear who will command the new contingent and how long it will operate, according to Reuters. No public command arrangement has been announced.
Armed gangs control much of Port-au-Prince and surrounding regions, nearly 1.5 million people have been displaced, and the country has gone without elected leaders for years. The UN-backed Gang Suppression Force has reached only about 2,000 troops, just over a third of its planned size.
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