Bukele takes his gang war to Haiti
El Salvador's president touts the destruction of the 400 Mawozo gang's headquarters. Amnesty International wants the agreement governing his soldiers made public.
Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele posted a 48-second video on Nov. 10 claiming his forces destroyed the home of gang boss Wilson Joseph, known as "Lanmò San Jou," and the headquarters of Haiti's 400 Mawozo gang.
The message, in Haitian Creole, says Bukele's side kept its promise and calls the gang members cowards who ran with barely a fight. The operation took place Nov. 8 in Croix-des-Bouquets, just outside Port-au-Prince, with Haitian police and Salvadoran soldiers taking part. There is no official count of the dead or wounded.
Haitian Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aimé answered in a post of his own, welcoming the Salvadoran forces' commitment and thanking Bukele.
Troops outside the UN chain of command
The Salvadorans arrived after an ambush on Oct. 18 left four of their service members missing. They have not been found. The contingent numbers about 2,000, and reports from mid-November put it above 2,500.
Nearly all of them sit outside the Gang Suppression Force, the mission the U.N. Security Council authorized in September 2025 for up to 5,550 personnel and which has about 2,000 on the ground. The Salvadorans operate under a bilateral deal between Port-au-Prince and San Salvador that has never been made public.
That is Amnesty International's objection. Ana Piquer, the group's Americas director, called on Nov. 9 for both governments to publish the agreement and to explain who oversees the troops, what rules govern the use of force and how residents can report abuses without fear of reprisal.
"It must not replicate the abuses and impunity" of past interventions, Piquer said of the response to gang violence.
Because they are outside the UN force, the soldiers also fall outside the monitoring of the U.N. support office in Haiti, a spokesman for the secretary-general has said.
El Salvador's model, abroad for the first time
Bukele cut homicides at home with a state of emergency, mass arrests and mega-prisons, an approach human rights groups accuse of serious violations. Haiti is the first place it has been applied outside El Salvador.
The terrain is far harder. An academic analysis published Nov. 11 counts nearly 6,000 killings in 2025 and more than 4,000 between January and September 2026. As of August, roughly a million and a half people had been displaced.
For Mexico, the stakes run through migration. A Haiti where gangs hold sway keeps pushing people north, and how this bet turns out will weigh on the regional security debate.
Fils-Aimé is expected in San Salvador around Nov. 16 to discuss the troops' future.
