Bukele launches operation to rescue soldiers captured in  Haiti

San Salvador (EFE).- El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, demanded that Haitian gangs release four Salvadoran soldiers unharmed, kidnapped after an ambush in Port-au-Prince, warning of reprisals if they are not returned alive.

“Today we launched a military operation to rescue them. We have one objective: to bring our four compatriots home alive and unharmed,” the president posted on social media on Wednesday.

Bukele warned the “gang leaders” who are holding the Salvadoran soldiers: “Understand something very clearly: today’s attack is nothing compared with what is coming if you do not release the four hostages alive.”

The Salvadoran president, whom international organizations accuse of human rights violations, enjoys broad popular support for his security policy and warned that his words should not be taken as “empty threats.”

“We have already put an end to the gangs in El Salvador, and we can put an end to yours as well. We still have time to prevent that. Return our four compatriots alive and unharmed, and everything will go back to the way it was before the kidnapping,” he stressed.

According to Bukele’s post, the four members of the Salvadoran mission were kidnapped “in a cowardly manner while returning after buying food at a market in the area.”

Several members of the gangs that control most of Port-au-Prince were killed, and others were wounded in clashes with the Gang Suppression Force (GSF), which is trying to locate four of its Salvadoran members, who have been missing in the Haitian capital since Sunday.

The GSF reported this in a statement saying that “search operations are continuing for four of its personnel from El Salvador.