El Salvador will send more than 2,000 soldiers to Haiti, and Haiti postpones its first presidential election in a decade to July 2027

The deployment pledge came out of a phone call between Bukele and Fils Aime on Wednesday, October 28. El Salvador's foreign ministry said Bukele intends to send more than 2,000 troops. Fils Aime's office confirmed the call in its own statement and said the two leaders “reaffirmed their engagement to reinforce bilateral coordination and operational cooperation in the framework of the Gang Suppression Force, notably to support rescue operations and respond to security challenges.”

The prime minister's office did not answer a question about whether the new Salvadoran forces will join the United Nations backed Gang Suppression Force or operate separately from it. Salvadoran soldiers are already in Haiti in growing numbers. A Haitian security official put the deployed strength at about 1,000 earlier this week, after an ambush that left Salvadoran technicians missing and put a rescue operation at the center of the mission.

The election delay arrived the same day. Haiti's electoral council published a new calendar on Wednesday moving the first round of the presidential vote to July 18, 2027. The council had planned a first round on December 13 of this year and then said it was reviewing the schedule. The vote will be Haiti first presidential election in a decade, in a country where armed gangs control much of the capital and the state has held no national election since the assassination of President Jovenel Moise in 2021 left the presidency empty.