In a development that would be comical if it weren't so grim, El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele has announced that four bodies handed over to special forces on a mission to recover Salvadoran hostages in Haiti are decidedly "not our men." The identification process, it seems, was less forensic examination and more basic pattern recognition.

Bukele explained that a nongovernmental organisation delivered the human remains to one of Haiti's airports, claiming they were four El Salvadoran air technicians. However, upon closer inspection, one of the corpses turned out to be a child's, and another was wearing a different country's army uniform. One can only assume the NGO's delivery service also offers package tracking with similarly dubious accuracy.

The four men had vanished after being ambushed by "heavily armed criminal groups" while travelling back to their camp in an armoured vehicle. They were part of the UN-backed Gang Suppression Force (GSF), tasked with tackling Haiti's worsening gang violence. The ambush occurred in Croix-des-Bouquets, an area controlled by armed groups. No gang has claimed responsibility, presumably because even they were confused by the subsequent body mix-up.

Bukele had dispatched a military contingent - reportedly hundreds of soldiers, with approximately 450 deployed according to Haitian newspaper Le Nouvelliste - on Thursday. The operation's sole purpose, he said, was to return the four men alive.

In a press conference that must have felt like a particularly morbid episode of a detective show, Bukele detailed the discrepancies: one body was of a man of "considerably greater height than that of our air technicians," another was wearing part of a uniform from an army that is not theirs, and among the remains were identification cards and uniforms from other countries. He even posted pictures showing the ID card of a GSF member and a corresponding national ID card from Chad in Africa. It's the kind of international incident that makes you wonder if someone mixed up the lost and found boxes at the airport.

Bukele's comments poured skepticism on an earlier New York Times report, which cited people close to the Salvadoran mission saying the bodies found on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince on Saturday were thought to belong to the missing men. The newspaper reported the bodies were badly burned, requiring medical examination for identification. One unnamed source briefed on the situation told the Times that the ID posted by Bukele actually belonged to a soldier who had lost it when he was injured. So either the Times' sources were wrong, or Bukele is engaging in some creative posting.

Haiti has been ravaged by gang violence for years, but the situation has worsened in the political vacuum following the assassination of its president in 2021. The multinational force dispatched to quell the violence has struggled to penetrate areas where gangs hold sway. According to the UN, more than 5,700 people have been killed or injured by gangs or during operations against them between 1 January and 11 September this year. That's a staggering toll, and one that makes the body mix-up even more tragic.

Bukele emphasised that the four GSF members were primarily there to "carry out medical evacuations and save lives, not to wage war." When they were abducted, helicopters were deployed and multiple attempts were made to reach the location, but these efforts were hampered by fighting in the area, according to the Salvadoran armed forces. It's a reminder that in conflict zones, even the most well-intentioned missions can go horribly awry - and sometimes the wrong bodies come home.