Four people were killed in a US military strike on a vessel in the Caribbean Sea on Sunday, the latest in a year-long series of attacks that Washington says target “narco-terrorists” but which human rights experts have condemned as extrajudicial killings.
US Southern Command said in a statement on X that Joint Task Force Western Hemisphere “executed a lethal, kinetic strike on a go-fast vessel operating along established narco-trafficking routes in the Caribbean,” citing what it called “confirmed intelligence” of the vessel’s involvement in drug trafficking, without providing further details. The command described the four people killed as “narco-terrorists.”
Death toll passes 220 since September 2025
The Trump administration has said that the vessels it has struck since September 2025 were transporting narcotics. Strikes on such vessels in the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific have killed more than 220 people, according to figures cited by the military.
The Pentagon has refused to release the identities of those killed and has not produced evidence of drugs found on board the targeted vessels. Video posted on social media showed what appeared to be an explosion engulfing a moving speedboat.
Legality questioned by rights groups
Experts and rights advocates in the United States and abroad have questioned the legality of the campaign. Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and independent UN experts have called the strikes unlawful extrajudicial killings, while Ben Saul, the UN special rapporteur on human rights and counterterrorism, has said there are “reasonable grounds to believe” the attacks “constituted crimes against humanity of murder under customary international law.”
The American Civil Liberties Union has described the administration’s claims about those targeted as “unsubstantiated, fear-mongering claims.” In the past year the campaign has also drawn scrutiny from both Democrats and some Republicans, including Senator Rand Paul, who has raised concerns about killing people without due process and the risk of striking innocent people.
Source: Reuters