Bukele Targets Haitian Gang Using Crowdsourced Info
Salvadoran president uses online tips to strike Haitian gang’s headquarters.
2 min read
El Salvador’s president announced that his troops had destroyed the headquarters of one of Haiti’s most powerful gangs, acting on a target a stranger handed him online. Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele posted video Tuesday of helicopters firing on a large house in Croix-des-Bouquets, near Port-au-Prince. “We destroyed the house of Lanmò San Jou and the 400 Mawozo gang’s headquarters,” Bukele wrote on X in Haitian Creole. He added that most fighters ran off “without even trying to fight” and called them cowards.
Nou kenbe pwomès nou… Nou detwi kay Lanmò San Jou ak katye jeneral gang 400 Mawozo a. Pifò ladan yo kouri ale san yo pa menm eseye goumen. Ala lach yo lach! 🥲 https://t.co/0AVIOJRKhn
The strike followed an online exchange days earlier. An X user shared a photograph on Nov. 5 claiming to show the gang’s base. Bukele answered, “where is this house? Give us the exact address and we will destroy it.” X users quickly responded with the home’s exact coordinates.
The operation happened Sunday and involved a Haitian police task force as well as Salvadoran forces, the Miami Herald reported. It featured explosive drones, ground action, and four helicopters, two of them flown by Salvadorans. Twenty people died in the assault, the newspaper stated, citing unnamed sources.
Accounts of the damage diverged. Some Haitian outlets reported the house destroyed while others described only a targeted strike, The Haitian Times reported. The competing versions could not be independently verified, the outlet stated.
Lanmò San Jou, whose real name is Wilson Joseph, was not inside the house when the attack took place, pro-government Salvadoran media stated. The gang is known for kidnappings and extortion, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.
Bukele has sent more than 2,000 soldiers into Haiti since late October, after four Salvadoran military personnel were ambushed and kidnapped, AFP reported. He has cast the mission as a search for the missing men and insists they remain alive, Argentinian outlet Infobae reported.
Most of those soldiers operate outside the United Nations-backed Gang Suppression Force, which has raised concern over their rules of engagement, according to AFP.
Amnesty International urged both governments to hold the operations to international human rights law and to release the agreement behind the deployment, Al Jazeera reported. Haiti’s prime minister praised Bukele after the raid.
Source: Daily Caller
