Bukele says the remains handed over in Haiti are not the four missing Salvadoran airmen: 'They are not our men'

El Salvador got an answer on Saturday, and the answer was no. The burned remains that were handed over at the airport in Haiti, with the claim that they were the four missing Salvadoran airmen, are not the four men. President Nayib Bukele said so himself, in public, hours after American newspapers reported that bodies believed to be the Salvadorans had been found.

Picture is an illustration of Salvadoran soldiers standing at attention beside a military transport aircraft on the tarmac at the international airport in Port-au-Prince at dusk.

Bukele posted the denial on X. “They are not our men,” he wrote, in the EFE translation of his post. “An NGO delivered human remains at the airport, claiming they belonged to our four aerotechnicians. However, the remains correspond to a child, to a man of a considerably greater height than that of our aerotechnicians, and to a person who wore part of a uniform of an army that is not ours. Among the remains, identification cards and military uniforms from other countries were also found.” EFE reported that Bukele backed the statement with two photographs, one of a Gang Suppression Force identification card carrying a non-Hispanic name and one of an identity document from Chad.

The Associated Press carried the same denial on Saturday. The AP reported that Bukele denied that human remains handed over to his military teams at Haiti's airport were the bodies of the four Salvadorans reported missing after the gang attack on October 18. An official with El Salvador's government, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the matter, confirmed to the AP that the bodies found were not those of the missing aviation technicians.

The denial answers a report that had moved fast earlier on Saturday. The New York Times reported that forensic doctors were examining burned remains found that day to determine whether they belonged to the Salvadoran soldiers ambushed a week earlier in Santo, in Croix-des-Bouquets, north of Port-au-Prince, EFE reported in its summary of the Times story. The Times cited three people close to the mission. The Times also cited Scott Reece, a former State Department security official whose aid organization Hero Client Rescue, a United States funded medical evacuation service based in Haiti, was called on Saturday afternoon to pick up the remains. Another source told the Times the bodies were completely burned. Reuters carried the Times report on Saturday and said it could not immediately confirm the report. The Gang Suppression Force declined to comment.

The four men are aviation technicians with El Salvador's air force, serving with the Gang Suppression Force, the United Nations authorized mission fighting Haiti's gangs. On Sunday, October 18, gangs ambushed their armored vehicle in Santo, in Croix-des-Bouquets, while the men were returning from a market to their base. Salvadoran officials said the men got out of the burning vehicle and contact was then lost. Bukele said on Wednesday, October 21, that gangs were holding the four men, and he announced a military operation to bring them back home alive and unharmed. He said the men are not combat troops. Their mission in Haiti is pilots and technical personnel whose main job is medical evacuation. A Salvadoran contingent sent by Bukele joined the search in the middle of the week, EFE reported, and Gang Suppression Force members backed by Haitian security forces have run a wide operation in the area of the attack since Sunday.

Bukele refused a false ending for four Salvadoran families. His government sent its own teams to Haiti, those teams received the remains at the airport, and the president told the country plainly when the remains did not match his men. The four technicians have not been confirmed dead, as of October 24. They remain missing, and the Salvadoran operation to find them and bring them home continues.