Salvadoran troops help destroy Haiti gang leader’s residence, headquarters

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AFP) — Haiti’s prime minister praised Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Tuesday after his country’s troops helped destroy the alleged home of a powerful Haitian gang leader.

The note of support from Alix Didier Fils-Aime, in a post on X, comes amid a deployment by Bukele of more than 2,000 soldiers into Haiti.

The move, which followed the disappearance of four Salvadoran soldiers, has raised concerns about the contingent’s rules of engagement and coordination with other security forces, including the United Nations-backed Gang Suppression Force (GSF).

“We destroyed the house of (gang leader) Lanmo San Jou and the 400 Mawozo gang’s headquarters,” Bukele wrote Tuesday on X, in Haitian Creole.

The right-wing leader posted video of at least three helicopters circling overhead and firing on the two-story house in Croix-des-Bouquets, near the capital Port-au-Prince. People are seen fleeing the area.

The Miami Herald newspaper reported that the attack took place on Sunday and was conducted by a Haitian police task force backed by Salvadoran troops.

Twenty people died, it wrote on Monday, citing anonymous sources.

“I salute the commitment of the Salvadoran forces in the fight against gangs,” File-Aime wrote in a post, accompanied by a screenshot from Bukele’s video.

“Hats off to President Nayib Bukele...for your support and commitment to the national fight against gangs.”

“Haiti, El Salvador, GSF: same fight, same determination!” he added.

The gang leader, whose real name is Wilson Joseph, was not in the house at the time of the attack, pro-government media in El Salvador reported.

The 400 Mawozo gang is known for kidnappings and extortion. In 2021, it abducted 16 US missionaries and a Canadian.

Promise ‘fulfilled’

Sunday’s attack came after a user on X, just days earlier, posted a photograph and claimed it was the gang headquarters, urging Bukele to destroy it.

Bukele answered at the time: “where is this house? Give us the exact address and we will destroy it.”

“We fulfilled our promise,” Bukele wrote Tuesday. He is known for iron-fisted rule and little tolerance of dissent in El Salvador and likes to call himself the world’s “coolest dictator.”

Gang warfare and political chaos have long plagued Haiti, the poorest country in the Americas.

Bukele initially stated the deployment aimed at bringing home four Salvadoran GSF soldiers who went missing during an ambush attack on 18 October.

But more recently, he has hinted at a broader goal of eliminating Haiti’s powerful gangs, as he did in his own country with a campaign that has raised allegations of rights abuses.

Amnesty International on Monday urged both countries to ensure that all operations conducted by Salvadoran forces in Haiti comply with international human rights law.

Dominican President Luis Abinader, whose country neighbors Haiti, urged El Salvador and the GSF on Tuesday to “reach an agreement and coordinate” their actions.