Gangs in Haiti target foreign troops in the biggest attack since a new force began operations

Gangs in Haiti opened fire on an ar­moured ve­hi­cle over the week­end, leav­ing four sol­diers from El Sal­vador un­ac­count­ed for in the first ma­jor at­tack since an in­ter­na­tion­al gang sup­pres­sion force be­gan op­er­a­tions in the vi­o­lence-wracked Caribbean coun­try.

The at­tack oc­curred Sun­day in Croix-des-Bou­quets, a once-peace­ful com­mu­ni­ty in Haiti’s cap­i­tal, Port-au-Prince, that is now con­trolled by vi­o­lent gangs.

The armed forces of El Sal­vador said in a state­ment Mon­day that the four avi­a­tion tech­ni­cians were re­turn­ing to camp when their ar­mored ve­hi­cle was at­tacked with ex­plo­sives and set on fire.

The mil­i­tary not­ed that the four men man­aged to flee the burn­ing ve­hi­cle and it is work­ing with in­ter­na­tion­al forces to “es­tab­lish con­tact and de­ter­mine the lo­ca­tion of our mil­i­tary per­son­nel.”

Sal­vado­ran au­thor­i­ties said that he­li­copters were dis­patched to the area but they, too, came un­der fire as they dis­persed armed men in the area.

“Mul­ti­ple at­tempts to ap­proach by land and air have been made, but these have been ham­pered by the in­ten­si­ty of the fight­ing,” the Sal­vado­ran mil­i­tary said.

The weapons and am­mu­ni­tion gangs are us­ing are not made in Haiti and will con­tin­ue to find ways to en­ter the coun­try, Wien-Weib­ert Arthus, Haiti’s deputy per­ma­nent rep­re­sen­ta­tive to the U.N., told the U.N. Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil Mon­day.

“This lat­est episode is a re­minder, as if we re­al­ly need­ed one, of the fact that the se­cu­ri­ty chal­lenges in Haiti are com­plex and com­pli­cat­ed,” he said. “We hope that those who are miss­ing will be able to go back to their fam­i­lies un­scathed.”

Gang vi­o­lence has dis­placed near­ly 1.5 mil­lion peo­ple, a record, across Haiti in re­cent years, with more than 5,700 peo­ple killed or in­jured from Jan­u­ary to mid-Sep­tem­ber, and more than 230 oth­ers kid­napped, ac­cord­ing to the U.N.

A warn­ing from the U.S.

Mike Waltz, the U.S. am­bas­sador to the U.N., con­demned the at­tack dur­ing the U.N. Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil meet­ing on Haiti.

“We be­lieve the four men sur­vived, but they do re­main un­ac­count­ed for,” he said. “We will bring you home.”

Waltz said that gangs at­tacked the ar­mored ve­hi­cle with “hun­dreds of bul­lets and ex­plo­sives.”

“To the gangs and gang lead­ers who car­ried out this cow­ard­ly at­tack, if you think you’re go­ing to in­tim­i­date this coali­tion in­to re­treat, you have made a ter­ri­ble mis­take,” he said.

The gang sup­pres­sion force said in a state­ment that it’s as­sess­ing the sit­u­a­tion and has ad­vised res­i­dents where the at­tack oc­curred to re­main in­doors.

“Gangs are test­ing the gang sup­pres­sion force,” Jack Christofides, the force’s spe­cial rep­re­sen­ta­tive, said at the U.N. Mon­day as he not­ed that at­tacks against the force have re­cent­ly in­creased.

He warned that gangs have car­ried out reprisal killings in some ar­eas fol­low­ing op­er­a­tions by Hait­ian and in­ter­na­tion­al forces, and that they have pushed deep­er in­to places in­clud­ing the com­mu­ni­ty of Ken­scoff and the Art­i­bonite re­gion.

“The re­al­i­ty is that we can­not be every­where at once,” Christofides said.

Haiti pre­pares for an elec­tion de­spite vi­o­lence

The area where the ar­mored ve­hi­cle was tar­get­ed is con­trolled by gangs in­clud­ing Chèn Méchan; Kraze Barye, led by Vitel­homme In­no­cent; and 400 Ma­wozo, led by Lan­mo San­jou. Both gang lead­ers have been sanc­tioned by the U.N. and the U.S.

Ro­main Le Cour, head of the Haiti Ob­ser­va­to­ry at the Glob­al Ini­tia­tive Against Transna­tion­al Or­ga­nized Crime, said that while some gangs have been un­der pres­sure since the sup­pres­sion force was de­ployed, “oth­ers want to show that they can strike back.”

“If these sol­diers are in­deed be­ing held, the groups gain (an) edge to ne­go­ti­ate and to pres­sure the se­cu­ri­ty forces,” he said.

In Sep­tem­ber 2025, the U.N. Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil au­tho­rized the 5,550-mem­ber force to re­place a for­mer Kenya-led multi­na­tion­al force that strug­gled with a lack of funds and re­sources as it tried to help Haiti’s Na­tion­al Po­lice quell gang vi­o­lence.

The gang sup­pres­sion force has more than 2,000 troops on the ground in Haiti, in­clud­ing sol­diers from Chad, Ja­maica and Guatemala.

“The force is mak­ing a dif­fer­ence with what it has,” Christofides said, adding that au­thor­i­ties have start­ed to see ear­ly signs of re­duced gang in­flu­ence and con­trol in cer­tain ar­eas.

No one has claimed re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the at­tack on the Sal­vado­ran troops. It comes as Haiti pre­pares for its first gen­er­al elec­tion in more than a decade and show­cas­es the pow­er of the gangs that con­trol an es­ti­mat­ed 70% of Port-au-Prince.

Car­los Ruiz Massieu, the U.N. spe­cial en­voy to Haiti, said at Mon­day’s meet­ing that elec­toral prepa­ra­tions “have reached an un­prece­dent­ed lev­el of progress.”

He said that more than 35 par­ties and po­lit­i­cal groups have reg­is­tered, along with 3,500 can­di­dates. Among them is for­mer Hait­ian Pres­i­dent Michel Martel­ly, who was sanc­tioned in No­vem­ber 2022 by Cana­da and in Au­gust 2024 by the U.S., which ac­cused him of fa­cil­i­tat­ing drug traf­fick­ing and spon­sor­ing mul­ti­ple gangs. —SAN JUAN, Puer­to Ri­co (AP)

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Sto­ry by DÁNI­CA CO­TO | As­so­ci­at­ed Press