Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele addressed Haitians for the second time on Tuesday, November 3, promising to help them “take back the country from the traitors who betrayed the legacy of Dessalines,” Le Nouvelliste reported.

In the message, Bukele invoked Jean-Jacques Dessalines, the father of Haiti's independence, whom he described as betrayed and killed by traitors seeking personal gain, plunging generations of Haitians into suffering. He said such traitors are still in Haiti, are not Dessalines's heirs, and that some of them have armed and financed gangs. He asked Haitians for their support in fighting them.

The message comes as El Salvador has sent more than 2,000 troops to Haiti since four of its soldiers went missing in an attack on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince on October 18, according to UN News. The UN says the vast majority of those troops are not deployed under the UN-backed Gang Suppression Force.

Haiti's government has insisted that foreign help does not replace the Haitian state, which it says keeps political and strategic control of the operations against gangs.