El Salvador Sends More Than 2,000 Troops to Haiti to Find Four Missing Airmen

El Salvador is deploying more than 2,000 soldiers to Haiti to search for four Salvadoran air force technicians who vanished after an ambush, the country's foreign ministry announced on Wednesday, according to the BBC. The troops will also support operations against armed gangs.

The announcement came the same day Haiti's electoral authorities postponed the country's first-round vote again, Al Jazeera reported, underlining how deeply insecurity is shaping politics there.

Who are the missing men and what happened to them?

The four Salvadorans were serving with the Gang Suppression Force, a UN-backed multinational mission that supports Haitian police. According to the BBC, they were returning to their base in an armored vehicle when attackers ambushed them in Croix-des-Bouquets, an area controlled by armed groups. Al Jazeera put the date of their disappearance at Oct. 18 and said the area lies east of the capital, Port-au-Prince.

No gang has claimed responsibility, the BBC reported.

Why are tensions rising between the two governments?

Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele posted on X on Oct. 21, in Haitian Creole, threatening to destroy Haiti's gangs if they did not release the missing personnel, according to Al Jazeera. The BBC said he promised to repeat the approach he has taken against gangs in El Salvador.

The BBC also reported that Haiti handed four bodies to Salvadoran special forces earlier this week, saying they were the missing servicemen. Bukele said they did not match: by his account, one of the bodies was a child's and another wore the uniform of a different country's military.

On Wednesday, Bukele spoke by phone with Haitian Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aime. Fils-Aime's office said the two agreed to strengthen cooperation on rescue efforts and security operations, according to Al Jazeera. The Salvadoran foreign ministry called the deployment a large-scale operation supported by various countries and international organizations.

It is not yet clear whether the extra Salvadoran troops will join the Gang Suppression Force or operate separately, Al Jazeera reported.

What did Haiti decide about its elections?

Haiti's Provisional Electoral Council moved the first round of presidential and parliamentary elections from Dec. 13 to July 18, 2027, Al Jazeera reported. A second round and local elections were scheduled for Oct. 4, 2027. The council also extended the deadline for candidates to register and introduced online voter registration.

Registration has been slow. According to the Miami Herald, as cited by Al Jazeera, fewer than 900,000 people had registered by Wednesday, out of 6.5 million Haitians who hold the identification cards needed to enroll. Gang-controlled roads make it hard to reach registration centers, and violence has driven many people from their homes.

Haiti has held no elections since 2016. Its last president, Jovenel Moise, was assassinated in 2021, and successive transitional authorities have delayed voting, citing insecurity.

Why does it matter?

For Haitians, the story is about security and daily survival. The UN says more than 5,700 people have been killed in gang-related violence in Haiti this year, according to the BBC, and armed groups control much of the capital. The multinational force has struggled to enter areas where gangs hold sway.

The humanitarian toll is also growing. An international food security assessment released on Wednesday found that 5.94 million Haitians face acute hunger, including 1.8 million in emergency conditions, as violence disrupts farming and food deliveries, Al Jazeera reported. The number is projected to rise to 6.35 million by mid-2027.

A large foreign deployment could change the security picture, but its role is still undefined, and the dispute over the missing men and the bodies handed over is straining relations between two governments that now say they are cooperating.

Around Prague, based on reporting by BBC News, Al Jazeera