The story is very straightforward.
On Sun., Oct. 18, five mercenaries from the U.S.-concocted, UN-blessed Gang Suppression Force (GSF), arrived in an armored Toyota Land Cruiser – called a “Zo Reken” or “shark bone” in Haiti – at a supermarket in the Santo neighborhood of northern Port-au-Prince to shop for some food.
The local population, including soldiers of the local Chen Mechan (“Vicious Dog”) armed group, saw them go into the store and then ambushed them when they came out with fierce gunfire. The mercenaries made it to their vehicle, but the Chen Mechan soldiers set it ablaze, burning and killing all five occupants.
The Chen Mechan, which is part of the Viv Ansanm (Live Together) neighborhood armed group coalition, has retrieved the five bodies from the vehicle and is holding them.
The Viv Ansanm presumes that at least four of the bodies are the missing Salvadoran mercenaries, which the Salvadoran military has admitted are “unaccounted for,” and that the fifth one is maybe the driver, but they don’t know his nationality.
This is the account provided to Haïti Liberté by Jimmy “Barbecue” Cherizier, the leader and principal spokesman of the Viv Ansanm.
Although three Kenyan policemen, deployed as part of the Multinational Security Support mission (MSS), died in 2024 and 2025 while fighting armed groups in Haiti’s Artibonite Valley, this is the first time that the Viv Ansanm armed groups have counterattacked and killed foreign mercenaries of the MSS or GSF in Port-au-Prince. (A foreign mercenary of Erik Prince’s Vectus Global force, which nominally works for Haiti’s de facto Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aimé, was killed when carrying out an operation in Croix-des-Bouquets in November 2025 by soldiers of the 400 Mawozo, another Viv Ansanm affiliate.)
The irony is that the U.S., which conceived, mustered, mostly pays for, and ultimately commands the 1,563 uniformed soldiers and policemen which make up the force (only 28% of the 5,500 which U.S. Secretary of State promised and the UN Security Council blessed when it was launched in September 2025), wants to deny that these soldiers were all killed in an ambush by the very force that the U.S. seeks to crush.
“Yesterday, four Salvadoran GSF soldiers suffered an intense ambush as they were returning to base from a market just outside Port au Prince,” said U.S. Ambassador to the UN Mike Walz at an emergency UN Security Council meeting the next day. “These thugs attacked their armored vehicle with hundreds of bullets and explosives. By God’s grace, we believe the men, four of the men survived, but they do remain unaccounted for. I just spoke with Ambassador Lopez from El Salvador to send a message to the people of El Salvador, to President Bukele, to every El Salvadorian service member deployed in Haiti that America stands shoulder-to-shoulder with them.”
While the U.S. and El Salvador to continue to insist on saying only four Salvadoran mercenaries are missing, the New York Times gave a different account.
“Five Salvadoran soldiers, members of a new U.N.-backed force sent to stop gang violence in Haiti, were ambushed while out shopping near the capital on Sunday and were still missing hours later, three people familiar with the situation said,” it reported on Oct. 18.
The Associated Press reported that the “armed forces of El Salvador said in a statement Monday that the four aviation technicians were returning to camp when their armored vehicle was attacked with explosives and set on fire,” which is a little closer to the Viv Ansanm’s account. But then came what may well be invention.
“The military noted that the four men managed to flee the burning vehicle and it is working with international forces to ‘establish contact and determine the location of our military personnel,’” the AP report continues. “Salvadoran authorities said that helicopters were dispatched to the area but they, too, came under fire as they dispersed armed men in the area. ‘Multiple attempts to approach by land and air have been made, but these have been hampered by the intensity of the fighting,’ the Salvadoran military said.”
The AP called it the biggest attack on the force since it began operations.
Why is the U.S. trying to hide that fact that five of its mercenaries were killed? Is it because the U.S. does not want to discourage other countries from sending troops to the GSF which is now, over a year since its launch, only at 28% of capacity? There current force only has troops from Chad, El Salvador, Guatemala, Jamaica, Mongolia, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh. It was only on Oct. 8 that the GSF was officially “deployed” with a ceremony filled with dance and martial arts demonstrations.
In any case, as the Haitian proverb says, “twou manti pa fon,” the hole a lie makes is not deep. And in the very near future, the truth will come out.
