The United States military has killed at least 174 people in a series of boat strikes in the eastern Pacific Ocean since September, with three more deadly attacks carried out in four days this week alone. The most recent strike, announced on Tuesday by US Southern Command — the branch of the US military responsible for operations in Latin America and the Caribbean — killed four people aboard a vessel the military described as travelling along "known narco-trafficking routes." Two people were killed in a separate strike on Monday, and five more on Sunday, with one survivor reported from that incident.
The Trump administration has sought to justify the campaign by claiming the United States is engaged in an "armed conflict" with Latin American drug cartels, with the military consistently alleging that those killed were engaged in narco-trafficking operations. Each announcement has been accompanied by blurry aerial footage showing boats exploding, but officials have not released specific intelligence or identifying details about the individuals targeted. The latest posts from US Southern Command used nearly identical language to previous announcements, describing those killed as "narco-terrorists" without providing supporting evidence.
The campaign has drawn sharp condemnation from legal experts, human rights organisations, and international bodies. United Nations officials have stated that international humanitarian law does not permit the killing of individuals accused of drug trafficking, particularly without evidence of an imminent threat to others. The American Civil Liberties Union has accused the administration of attempting to redefine civilians as combatants in order to claim advance legal immunity for federal officials carrying out the strikes. Investigations have indicated that some of those killed were fishermen. In January, families of two men from a fishing village in Trinidad who were killed in an October Caribbean strike filed a federal lawsuit against the US government, arguing the killings lacked any plausible legal justification.
US Democratic representatives Joaquín Castro and Sara Jacobs have written to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights — a regional body that monitors human rights across the Americas — raising alarms about the campaign. They noted that the names and nationalities of most victims remain unknown, and described the strikes as "a prolonged campaign of extrajudicial killings."
The strikes are continuing even as the US military remains engaged in operations related to the ongoing conflict with Iran, underscoring the scale of resources being devoted to the anti-narcotics campaign. Why this matters: the legal and humanitarian questions raised by these strikes — conducted outside any formally recognised armed conflict zone and without judicial process — set a significant precedent for how military force may be used against individuals accused, but not convicted, of crimes.