Nayib Bukele Says Burned Bodies Found in Haiti Are NOT His Missing Soldiers: "They Are Not Our Men"

Four bodies recovered in Haiti on Saturday were first reported to be the four Salvadoran soldiers missing since a gang ambush last Sunday — and then, within hours, President Nayib Bukele publicly rejected that claim, saying the remains do not belong to his men at all.

"They are not our men," Bukele wrote on X, hours after The New York Times reported that the remains had been found and were believed to be those of the missing soldiers.

The president said the bodies handed over to Salvadoran forces included a child, a man considerably taller than the Salvadoran soldiers, and a soldier from another country — and he shared photos of a soldier's identification document from Chad.

What the New York Times reported

The Times reported on Saturday, citing two people close to the security mission, that bodies believed to be those of the four Salvadoran soldiers had been found outside the capital, Port-au-Prince. The newspaper said the remains were recovered on Saturday and were badly burned, meaning autopsies would be needed to confirm their identities.

According to the report, the bodies were handed over at the international airport to a Salvadoran military team that had flown into Haiti on Friday. The international security mission declined to comment, and Reuters said it could not immediately confirm the report.

The ambush that started it all

The four Salvadorans went missing on Sunday, 18 October, after they jumped from a burning armored vehicle that came under attack on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince while they were returning from a market to their base, Salvadoran officials said earlier this week. The ambush was the first major attack on the Gang Suppression Force, the United Nations-authorized multinational mission, since it began operations in Haiti this year.

President Nayib Bukele said on Wednesday that gangs were holding the four men and that El Salvador had launched a military operation to bring them back unharmed. Additional Salvadoran troops were later deployed to support the search and security operations.

The four are aviation technicians whose main job is medical evacuation, not combat, Bukele has stressed. No group has publicly claimed responsibility for the attack. Local media have linked the ambush to gangs operating in the area, including the powerful armed groups Chen Mechan and 400 Mawozo.

A rescue operation with no answers yet

El Salvador's search effort has grown by the day. A Salvadoran special forces contingent arrived in Port-au-Prince on 22 October, and about 100 more soldiers were expected to follow. Local reports said the Salvadoran contingent in the capital had reached around 450 military personnel by Friday, 23 October.

CNN reported that operations by the Gang Suppression Force in the area have led to armed clashes that killed at least seven gang members and wounded four mission personnel. A gang leader known as Lanmo Sanjou posted a video showing large quantities of ammunition and said his group "would fight to stay alive."

Bukele warned on Wednesday that the ambush was "nothing" compared with what would follow if the four were not returned alive and unharmed — and he has insisted his purpose is for the "four compatriots to return home alive, without any harm."

A mission running far below strength

A year into its mandate, the Gang Suppression Force has about 2,000 troops on the ground, well below its authorized ceiling of 5,500. An earlier Kenyan-led security effort struggled with chronic shortages of money, equipment and personnel.

Haiti's gangs have expanded sharply since the 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moise, taking control of large parts of Port-au-Prince and displacing between 1.4 million and 1.5 million people.

Why it matters

Saturday's confusion — a report that the bodies had been found, followed by a presidential denial — shows how little is certain a week after the ambush. The four Salvadoran technicians remain unaccounted for, no proof of life has been made public, and no gang has claimed responsibility or made a ransom demand.

For Bukele, who built his political brand on crushing gangs at home, the fate of the four men has become a test of his reach abroad. For Haiti, the attack on the UN-backed force is a warning that the gangs now control enough territory to strike the very mission sent to stop them.

Reporting based on Reuters, The New York Times, the Associated Press, CNN, Demócrata and local Haitian media.