The US military announced on Friday that it killed two people in an attack on a boat in the eastern Pacific, part of a series of deadly strikes on vessels in recent months which it claims are targeting “narco-trafficking” operations.
The US Southern Command declared in a social media post on X that Gen Francis L Donovan directed Joint Task Force Southern Spear, the counter-narcotics unit that operates in the region, to carry out a lethal strike. The US military posted a video, which it labeled unclassified, showing a small boat being destroyed in an explosion.
The US campaign targeting boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific has killed at least 178 people since last September, but there is not detailed evidence behind military officials’ claims that the vessels targeted are involved in drug trafficking. Legal experts argue the US military is violating domestic and international law in conducting its attacks, and the families of two men from Trinidad killed in a strike have filed a suit against the government.
SouthCom has put out a steady stream of social posts in recent months announcing its strikes, usually accompanied by a low-resolution video showing vessels being blown up in US attacks. The Trump administration has argued its strikes are legal, claiming that it is adhering to the laws of conflict because the US is at war with drug cartels.
Donald Trump has also claimed the military campaign is necessary to prevent overdose deaths in the US and stop the influx of illicit drugs into the country. “What we’re doing is actually an act of kindness,” Trump said last year regarding the strikes.
Civil rights groups have vowed to challenge the legality of the deadly attacks through all available pathways, while UN officials have described the US campaign as a flagrant violation of human rights.
“We are doing everything in our power to hold the Trump administration responsible for its egregious violations of both US and international law, and that includes asking the widely respected Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to investigate these heinous killings,” Jamil Dakwar, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Human Rights Program, said in a statement last month.