President Nayib Bukele has presented El Salvador’s operation in Haiti as a mission guided by religious faith, using biblical language to express confidence in efforts to recover four Salvadoran military personnel missing after a gang attack.
In his latest public statement, Bukele described the Salvadoran participants as believers who had entrusted their mission to God. He also referred to Haitian gangs as “satanic,” making a religious characterization of the armed groups as he defended his government’s decision to proceed despite warnings about the dangers involved.
The president rejected arguments that Haiti’s criminal organizations are too powerful to confront, saying his administration would not be deterred by predictions that the mission could end in failure. He reinforced his message by quoting Deuteronomy 28:7, a passage about overcoming adversaries.
El Salvador’s operation follows an attack in Croix-des-Bouquets in which four military aviation technicians reportedly went missing. Salvadoran authorities have deployed special forces to support efforts to locate and rescue them, while the security situation in the area remains volatile.
Bukele’s remarks combine a message of military determination with an explicit appeal to faith. His characterization of the gangs reflects his own rhetoric, while the immediate objective of the deployment remains the recovery of the missing Salvadoran personnel.