PORT-AU-PRINCE, Oct 24 (Reuters) – Bodies believed to be those of four Salvadoran soldiers missing since an ambush by armed gangs in Haiti ​have been found outside the capital, Port-au-Prince, the New York Times ‌reported on Saturday, citing two people close to the security mission.

The newspaper said the remains were recovered on Saturday and were badly burned, meaning autopsies would be needed to ​confirm their identities. It said 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. Reuters could ​not immediately confirm the report.

The four Salvadorans went missing on Sunday 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, ​a 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 search and security operations.

No group has publicly claimed ​responsibility for the ​attack. Local media ⁠have linked the ambush to gangs operating in the area, including powerful armed groups Chen Mechan and 400 Mawozo.

A year ​into its mandate, the GSF 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 1.4 million to 1.5 million people.

4 Bodies Found in Haiti Are Thought to Be Those of Missing Salvadoran Soldiers

By David C. Adams and Frances Robles

Four bodies believed to be those of Salvadoran soldiers who went missing after being deployed to Haiti on an international mission to crack down on gangs were found on Saturday, according to two people close to the mission.

The four Salvadorans had been deployed as part of a helicopter unit assigned to the Gang Suppression Force, a mission backed by the United Nations Security Council to go after Haiti’s gangs.

It was the first time the force has suffered any deaths. The episode threatened to sharply escalate the violence as more troops were sent to find them.

The discovery comes just days after El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, sent hundreds of special forces members to Haiti to try to recover the men. Mr. Bukele had threatened to finish the gangs off if the men were not returned alive.

The bodies were located six days after the men were ambushed while driving through a gang stronghold, said Scott Reece, a former State Department security official whose humanitarian aid organization was hired to retrieve the dead.

Mr. Reece’s local humanitarian group, Hero Client Rescue, a U.S.-funded medical evacuation service based in Haiti, was called to pick up the remains on Saturday afternoon.

Another person briefed on the matter but not authorized to speak publicly stressed that the Gang Suppression Force had the four bodies but cautioned that they were badly burned and that autopsies would be necessary to confirm the identities.

The bodies were collected from an undisclosed location on the outskirts of the capital, Port-au-Prince, and taken to the international airport to be handed over to a Salvadoran military team that flew into Haiti on Friday, Mr. Reece said.

“We were called as a neutral humanitarian medical team to go pick up the remains,” Mr. Reece said.
Gangs have wreaked havoc in Haiti for several years, taking over entire neighborhoods and killing thousands of people. More than 1.5 million people have had to flee their homes.

The Salvadorans were driving through the Croix-des-Bouquets area near Port-au-Prince in an armored S.U.V. last Sunday when they came under fire and had to flee the vehicle, which was later found burned. The men were returning from a trip to a supermarket, driving through an area that is so dangerous that it is generally off-limits to foreigners.
The local news media reported that the Salvadorans were killed and then burned by Chen Mechan and 400 Mawozo, gangs that operate in that area, on the northern outskirts of the capital.
The men were aviation technicians who handled transport and medical evacuations for the Gang Suppression Force.

The Salvadoran contingent is made up of pilots and technical personnel whose primary jobs are to carry out medical evacuations and save lives, “not to wage war,” Mr. Bukele said Wednesday in a social media post.
After another international police mission failed to quell the violence, the new anti-gang force arrived in Haiti in April. It has struggled to reach its full expected deployment of 5,500. It currently has just over 2,000 troops in Haiti, from Jamaica, Chad, Mongolia, El Salvador, Sri Lanka and Guatemala.
A spokesman for the G.S.F. could not be immediately reached on Saturday evening for comment. A spokeswoman for Mr. Bukele and two press officers for the Salvadoran Armed Forces did not respond to a request for comment.

Frances Robles is a Times reporter covering Latin America and the Caribbean. She has reported on the region for more than 25 years.