Five Salvadoran soldiers, members of a new U.N.-backed force sent to stop gang violence in Haiti were ambushed while out shopping near the capital on Sunday and were still missing hours later, three people familiar with the situation said.
The soldiers were in a vehicle in a gang-controlled area just north of Port-au-Prince when one of the five reported they were under attack and he had been injured. No one has heard from him or the four others in the vehicle since, the people said.
The Salvadoran military said on social media early Monday that it was working to find and establish contact with four of its aviation technicians deployed in Haiti who had come under attack from heavily armed criminal groups. The discrepancy in numbers could not be immediately explained.
The military said the four had managed to escape from their armored vehicle after it was hit by explosives and caught fire, and that Salvadoran military helicopters were deployed to support them, forcing the criminal groups to retreat.
But the helicopters were themselves hit by gunfire, and other support operations were hindered by violence in the area, it said.The military said that it was working with the Gang Suppression Force, a U.N.-backed mission aimed at curtailing Haiti’s widespread gang violence, to find its missing troops.
After some recent arrivals, the force is currently made up of more than 2,000 personnel from Chad, El Salvador, Guatemala, Jamaica, Mongolia and Sri Lanka. The Salvadorans operate a helicopter unit that largely handles transportation and other logistics.
It was unclear what the Salvadorans were doing shopping in an area that is considered a restricted “red zone,” which people from the United Nations and diplomatic missions would be prohibited from entering without armored vehicles and weapons.
They were shopping in Santo, a community near Croix-de-Bouquets controlled by a gang known as “Chien Méchant,” or “Vicious Dog,” two of the people said. They and the third person all spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the case publicly. The 400 Mawozo gang, known for conducting widespread kidnappings, also operates in that area.
In a statement late Sunday, the Gang Suppression Force confirmed that a vehicle carrying some of its soldiers came under attack and exchanged gunfire with suspected gang members.
It said the force was “continuing to assess the situation and verify the circumstances surrounding the incident.”
Other soldiers in the mission were out looking for the missing soldiers, one of the people close to the situation said. A spokesman for the Haitian National Police said he did not have information on the incident.
Residents in the area took to social media to report increased helicopter activity and gunfire.
Haiti is in the throes of an extreme gang crisis that has killed more than 22,000 people since 2021. At least 138 people were kidnapped in the first six months of this year, according to U.N. statistics.The Gang Suppression Force was organized after a previous international mission failed to quell the violence. The new force is supposed to be much larger, made up of 5,500 soldiers from around the world, and with a more robust mandate to operate independently of the police and even make arrests.
In an interview last month, Jack Christofides, special representative of the Gang Suppression Force in Haiti, acknowledged that the force was behind in troop numbers but said the operations were already beginning to chip away at gang activities such as extortion.
“What we’re seeing is that the gangs are starting to attack us, which is a sure sign that we’re affecting their business model, and we’re affecting their revenue collection,” Mr. Christofides said. “But we’ve got a long way to go, we totally recognize that.”
He said the force would have most of its soldiers on the ground by late this year. The violence is so rampant that officials have repeatedly postponed elections, which have not been held in a decade.
André Paultre, Michael Anthony Adams and Mike Ives contributed reporting.
