Bukele: gangs in Haiti are “satanic,” so God will grant us victory

The president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, stated this Friday that the gangs in Haiti are “satanic,” and therefore, according to him, “God will grant us victory,” in reference to the search for four Salvadoran soldiers who went missing in the island nation following an ambush last Sunday on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince.

A contingent from El Salvador arrived on Thursday in the Haitian capital to support search operations for the four soldiers who are part of the Gang Suppression Force (GSF), an international deployment in Haiti to combat gangs.

“Everyone who has enlisted is a believer and we have entrusted this mission to God, while the gangs of Haiti are satanic and it is public knowledge that they perform human sacrifices. God will grant us victory. The Creator of the Universe is with us,” wrote Bukele in a message on X.

The Salvadoran president was responding in this way to those who believe that Bukele’s success in combating gangs in El Salvador could not be transferred to an unknown territory like Haiti, where successive international missions were unable to pacify the country.

“But when God grants us victory, the same people who say all that today will change their tune. They will say it was always easy, that anyone could do it, that the gangs in Haiti were not as dangerous as people thought,” he remarked.

Bukele warns of reprisals

Bukele already warned Haitian gangs this week of possible reprisals if they do not release the Salvadorans unharmed.

In recent decades, several multinational military operations promoted by the UN have taken place in Haiti for peacekeeping and the restoration of democracy, including the 1994 operation, led by the United States, which restored then-President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to power, and the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (Minustah), which was in the country between 2004 and 2017.

The GSF, with a thousand members currently, was authorized a year ago by the United Nations Security Council to combat armed gangs and help stabilize Haiti, and its mandate was renewed for six months on September 29.

More than 5,700 people have been killed or injured so far this year in Haiti due to gang violence, to which the UN also allegedly attributes more than 230 kidnappings and the rape of more than 1,000 women and girls.