Salvadoran troops seize Haiti's national stadium from gangs

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breitbart.com

Salvadoran special forces have seized Port-au-Prince's Stade Sylvio Cator, the 10,000-capacity national stadium that gangs have held since February 2024, and President Nayib Bukele says troops found "several human skulls" inside. The stadium will now serve as an operational base for pushing deeper into gang-controlled districts of the Haitian capital. The gang seizure two years ago forced Haiti's national football team to play its World Cup qualifiers in Curaçao; the ground where those matches should have been played has instead been catalogued as a crime scene. The joint operation brought together Haitian police, the Haitian armed forces, the private Task Force group serving the Haitian government, and Salvadoran special forces, under a bilateral agreement between the two governments. Bukele announced the advance in Haitian Creole on social media, urging gang members to leave before the offensive begins and warning that those who stay "will face the consequences." Footage accompanying the post shows armed robot dogs being activated during the operation and residents greeting soldiers by shouting the president's name. More than 2,000 Salvadoran troops have been deployed in Haiti since late October under the UN Security Council-approved Gang Suppression Force, sent after Bukele pledged reinforcements following attacks on Salvadoran personnel — including four aircraft technicians who remain missing. The stadium seizure came hours after Salvadoran troops attacked and, by Bukele's account, destroyed a facility believed to be the headquarters of the 400 Mawozo gang, led by Wilson Joseph, an FBI-wanted fugitive. That attack followed Bukele publicly requesting the location on X. Haiti's own police confined themselves to a brief statement confirming they had handed the stadium over. According to Le Nouvelliste, more than twenty armored vehicles and trucks carrying Salvadoran forces are now stationed inside. An unnamed Haitian military source told the paper that "each actor will play the role assigned to them" as Haitian forces consolidate downtown. The mission answers a question the region's governments had quietly avoided: with Haiti's state and the UN-mandated mission unable to hold ground, a foreign army now exercises the monopoly on violence in the capital — and bills itself, through its president's social media feeds, as the hemisphere's security contractor of last resort. Four kidnapped Salvadoran technicians are still missing, and their president has promised the gangs "destruction" if they are not returned.