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boat strikes
'Crimes Against Humanity': US Murders 2 More People in Pacific Ocean Boat Bombing
The latest killing came a day after a Democratic senator revealed that "the presence of narcotics on the boat has never been a targeting criteria" in the boat bombings.
Jun 04, 2026
The Trump administration killed two more people in a boat bombing in the eastern Pacific Ocean Wednesday, bringing the total number of people killed in the operation human rights experts have condemned as an "extrajudicial killing" spree to at least 207.
"The Trump administration’s lawless killing spree at sea continues," said Brian Finucane, senior adviser at the US program at the International Crisis Group. "The term for premeditated killing outside of armed conflict is murder—and there is no armed conflict here."
As with previous announcements of the lethal boat strikes, at least 63 of which have now been carried out by the US military in an operation the Trump administration has insisted is stopping drugs from reaching the US, US Southern Command presented no evidence Wednesday night when it said the victims were "two male narco-terrorists" and that the boat was "engaged in narco-trafficking operations."
Finucane noted that "even if there were an armed conflict, there’s no indication these supposed 'narco-terrorists' are lawful targets."
President Donald Trump has claimed the US is in an armed conflict with drug cartels in Latin America, and that the Caribbean and eastern Pacific are a legitimate battleground where the conflict has played out. But a number of victims have been identified as fishermen, and families have filed legal complaints against the US over the killings.
After the bombings began in September, Vice President JD Vance all but publicly admitted that the operation would put innocent people at risk, joking at a rally that he "wouldn’t go fishing right now in that area of the world."
The US in the past has treated drug trafficking as a criminal issue, in accordance with international law. A top military lawyer warned the Pentagon last August, just before the operation began, that carrying out the boat bombings could put top officials as well as rank-and-file service members at risk of being held criminally liable.
"Over 200 people killed so far, some who seem likely to have died agonizing deaths by drowning after clinging to wreckage for hours, with no trials, and without a single piece of evidence released to the public of their guilt or of any intent to smuggle drugs to the United States," said Aaron Rechlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council.
The latest boat bombing came a day after US Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) revealed a key detail about the "targeting criteria" the military has been using as it's conducted the bombings since last September.
On Tuesday at a hearing where Secretary of State Marco Rubio testified, Kaine noted that "evidence of narcotics on the boat" has not been a prerequisite for US Southern Command to conduct lethal strikes in Operation Southern Spear, despite the fact that the administration has insisted the operation is aimed at stopping drug trafficking boats from reaching the US.
"I've been briefed on Southern Spear since the first operation on September 2 and most recently within the last couple of weeks, and I've asked again and again, 'Have the targeting criteria changed?' 'No they have not,'" said Kaine. "The presence of narcotics on the boat has never been a targeting criteria."
Despite that, Kaine noted, "The administration has always announced, 'This is against narco-traffickers'" when a new strike has been carried out.
Adam Isacson, director for defense oversight at the Washington Office on Latin America, pointed out that Operation Southern Spear comes two decades after human rights groups presented evidence to US military leaders that "their Colombian military partners were carrying out extrajudicial executions" in what became known as the "false positive" killings.
As Human Rights Watch has explained:
Between 2002 and 2008, army brigades across Colombia routinely executed civilians. Under pressure from superiors to show “positive” results and boost body counts in their war against guerrillas, soldiers and officers abducted victims or lured them to remote locations under false pretenses—such as with promises of work—killed them, placed weapons on their lifeless bodies, and then reported them as enemy combatants killed in action. Committed on a large scale for more than half a decade, these “false positive” killings constitute one of the worst episodes of mass atrocity in the Western Hemisphere in recent decades.
"Now," said Isacson, US officials are "carrying out their own extrajudicial executions every few days. No middleman."
Journalist Joseph Bouchard said the boat strikes could be called the United States' "own false positives scandal."
"None of these have been military targets," said Bouchard. "And even then, do we just kill drug traffickers now, without trial? Better name might be the classic 'crimes against humanity.'"
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'Now More Than 200 Trump Summary Executions' as US Bombs Another Boat
One legal expert said the grim milestone raises the question of whether the US is committing a "crime against humanity."
May 31, 2026
The US military on Friday bombed another boat it claimed was smuggling drugs in the eastern Pacific Ocean, killing three more people in what experts say is an illegal campaign whose death toll has now topped 200.
US Southern Command said in a statement that "Joint Task Force Southern Spear," the nine-month campaign ordered by President Donald Trump, "conducted a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel operated by Designated Terrorist Organizations."
"Intelligence confirmed the vessel was transiting along known narco-trafficking routes in the Eastern Pacific and was engaged in narco-trafficking operations," SOUTHCOM added, providing no evidence to support its claim. "Three male narco-terrorists were killed during this action. No US military forces were harmed. SOUTHCOM is unwavering in its commitment to applying total systemic friction on the cartels."
Friday's strike brought the number of people killed during Southern Spear to 202 in at least 60 strikes in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean.
The Trump administration has tried to justify the strikes by claiming that the US is in an “armed conflict” with drug cartels. Many legal experts disagree.
Former longtime Human Rights Watch executive director Kenneth Roth wrote on X: "Now more than 200 Trump summary executions—blatant murders."
"Legal experts agree: The Trump-ordered strikes on suspected drug boats are illegal extrajudicial killings because the military is not permitted to deliberately target civilians—even suspected criminals—who do not pose an imminent threat of violence," Roth said in a separate post.
Just Security editor-in-chief and New York University School of Law professor Ryan Goodman said that the "overwhelming consensus of experts, myself included, assess these to be murder because no armed conflict" is occurring, adding that they would be a "war crime if it were armed conflict."
Goodman said that, with 200 people killed, the strikes raise the question of whether the US is committing a "crime against humanity."
The boat strikes were fraught from the start. In the first known attack, US forces killed nine people in an initial strike and then two men clinging to the boat’s wreckage in a follow-up bombing.
The bombings have drawn widespread condemnation, including from Colombian President Gustavo Petro, who accused the US of "murder," and Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, who was abducted during a US invasion in January and imprisoned in the United States on dubious narco-terrorism charges.
Regional leaders and relatives of survivors say that at least some of the victims of the US bombings were fishermen with no ties to narco-trafficking. In January, relatives of two Trinidadian fishers killed in the strikes filed a federal wrongful death lawsuit in Massachusetts.
The bombings have terrorized fishing communities along the Caribbean and Pacific coasts to the point where many people have given up the only means they had of supporting their families.
Congressional war powers resolutions aimed at reining in Trump’s ability to extrajudicially execute alleged drug traffickers in or near Venezuela failed to pass the Senate last October and the House in December.
“Not only are these killings illegal, they are immoral. People of good conscience cannot allow this to continue, yet Congress has so far failed to halt, or even slow down, this lethal and unlawful campaign," Amnesty International USA national director for government relations Amanda Klasing said in a statement Wednesday.
"Lawmakers must do everything in their power to halt this campaign and hold everyone responsible accountable for their role in these extrajudicial killings,” she added.
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'These Extrajudicial Killings Are Becoming Normalized,' Amnesty Warns After More Boat Bombings
"Not only are these killings illegal, they are immoral. People of good conscience cannot allow this to continue."
May 28, 2026
The Trump administration on Wednesday killed two more people in the eastern Pacific by bombing a vessel accused—without evidence—of trafficking drugs, bringing the death toll from the US military's illegal campaign of boat attacks in international waters closer to 200.
Amnesty International, which has spoken out forcefully against the boat strikes since they began in September 2025, warned in a statement Wednesday that "these extrajudicial killings are becoming normalized" as they fade from the headlines and lawmakers do nothing to stop the administration.
“Not only are these killings illegal, they are immoral," said Amanda Klasing, Amnesty's national director for government relations. "People of good conscience cannot allow this to continue, yet Congress has so far failed to halt, or even slow down, this lethal and unlawful campaign.”
The US Southern Command announced strikes in the eastern Pacific Ocean on Tuesday and Wednesday, attacks that killed three people total.
SOUTHCOM called the victims "narco-terrorists" without any evidence. According to a tracker maintained by The Intercept's Nick Turse, the Trump administration's boat bombing campaign has killed 197 people since September 2025.
On May 27, at the direction of #SOUTHCOM commander Gen. Francis L. Donovan, Joint Task Force Southern Spear conducted a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel operated by Designated Terrorist Organizations. Intelligence confirmed the vessel was transiting along known narco-trafficking… pic.twitter.com/qKvSjxpk3P
— U.S. Southern Command (@Southcom) May 28, 2026
“Numbers alone cannot capture the unimaginable human toll of this horrific campaign of murder at sea," Klasing said Wednesday. "Every single person that the U.S. has killed at sea was arbitrarily deprived of their right to life, and they and their families have a right to justice. Lawmakers must do everything in their power to halt this campaign and hold everyone responsible accountable for their role in these extrajudicial killings."
“We are witnessing the height of lawlessness—a government taking military action to kill people who it unilaterally deems ‘criminals’ or ‘terrorists’ and then bragging about it on social media and stonewalling members of Congress demanding explanations," Klasing added. "Regardless of whether the victims committed crimes or not, killing them is completely illegal under both US and international law. Alleged criminal suspects should be dealt with by law enforcement who are bound by international human rights law, which prohibits using lethal force unless absolutely necessary based on an imminent threat to life."
Few of the nearly 200 victims of the US military's assault on vessels in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific have been publicly identified. Earlier this year, family members of two Trinidadian men—Chad Joseph and Rishi Samaroo—killed by a US strike in October filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the Trump administration.
"Rishi was a hardworking man who paid his debt to society and was just trying to get back on his feet again and to make a decent living in Venezuela to help provide for his family," said Sallycar Korasingh, Samaroo's sister. "If the US government believed Rishi had done anything wrong, it should have arrested, charged, and detained him, not murdered him. They must be held accountable."
Ana Piquer, Amnesty's Americas director, called for urgent action from the international community to rein in the lawless Trump administration.
“Beyond US authorities, we need to see leadership from other governments in the region, as well as the Organization of American States,” said Piquer. "The international community must speak out firmly against these murders, which constitute a serious threat to human rights and respect for international law. Governments must immediately suspend intelligence sharing that may contribute to these operations. They further should suspend export licenses to any defense material that could be used to perpetuate these murders."
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