Bukele Denies Bodies Found in Haiti Are Missing Salvadorans
The Facts
- El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele said in a post on X on Saturday that human remains handed over to Salvadoran forces do not belong to the four aviation technicians who went missing after a gang ambush in Haiti last Sunday.
- U.S.-funded, Haiti-based medical evacuation service HERO Client Rescue collected garbage bags containing burned corpses, believed to be from the Salvadorans, from a drop site in a gang-controlled territory and turned them over to the Gang Suppression Force (GSF).
- The bodies were "badly burned," according to the Miami Herald and the New York Times, and were sent to forensic testing for identification. Sources told the Times that doctors have already examined the remains.
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The Spin
Government-critical narrative
El Salvador's mission in Haiti isn't a real rescue operation; it's a political story Bukele is pushing to appease his nation. The plain truth is that the Trump administration has dumped another ugly mess on its Central American ally, as it did on immigration. The U.S. has been frustrated with the Gang Suppression Force and Port-au-Prince for months and is now taking a back door.
Pro-government narrative
Bukele's anti-gang record at home is why this rescue operation in Haiti carries weight: he has shown that crime folds when a government has the guts to act. This has nothing to do with doing dirty work for Washington or feeding his voters a story. After all, getting the four Salvadorans back is a duty to the country's army and Haitian gangs must be held accountable for ambushing and kidnapping them.
