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‘Serial Killer Empire’: US Kills 3 in Boat Strike, Bringing Trump Murder Count in ‘Make-Believe War’ to 230
"This is neither 'peace' nor 'strength,'" said one policy expert. "It's gruesome."
Sep 10, 2026
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke publicly for the first time Wednesday about a shift in the Pentagon's boat bombing operations, in which the US in recent days has begun interdicting suspected refueling vessels for drug boats in Ecuador's territorial waters—but he made clear that the military is also still killing people aboard boats, as it did Wednesday in the latest bombing in the Caribbean.
US Southern Command announced that Joint Task Force Western Hemisphere—the recently rebranded name of the Trump administration's expanding military operation that it says is aimed at stopping drug trafficking—had executed its latest "lethal kinetic strike" on a boat operating along known "narco-trafficking routes in the Caribbean," killing three people that the US claimed were "narco-terrorists."
"Confirmed intelligence revealed the vessel's active involvement in narco-trafficking," said US Southern Command, releasing no evidence of the boat's illegal activities.
International legal experts have emphasized that the US is not in an authorized military conflict with drug cartels and that drug trafficking under international law is treated as a crime by law enforcement agencies—not as an act of force that the US can legally respond to with military action.
Officials and military service members involved in the strikes may be liable for war crimes or murder, experts have warned. Some of the at least 230 victims of the boat bombings since last September have been identified, with family members saying they were not even involved in drug trafficking.
Historian Alexander Aviña used the term "serial killer empire" to describe the Trump administration after the latest bombing.
Adam Isacson of the Washington Office on Latin America noted that the announcement by US Southern Command Wednesday night was the first in more than a year of attacks in which the strike order was "not attributed to a person."
Isacson also pointed out that according to Customs and Border Patrol data, there is little, if any, evidence that bombing boats and killing crew members and passengers in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific Ocean has done anything to stop the flow of drugs into the US.
Outside the US Embassy in Quito, Ecuador, Rubio told reporters Wednesday that as the US also begins conducting joint operations with Ecuador to interdict suspected refueling vessels in the country's territorial waters, "we have to operate according to their laws."
In those operations, people aboard the boats have been removed and handed over to Ecuadorian authorities before the US has conducted strikes.
Rubio at one point referred to the lethal boat bombings as operations that took place "earlier, last year," but also emphasized, "We still blow up ships if need be."
Brian Finucane of the International Crisis Group said the administration is continuing its campaign of "illegal killing in a make-believe war."
The latest boat bombing also came as Rubio announced that the US was designating Los Tiguerones, an Ecuadorian gang, as a foreign terrorist organization, empowering the administration to freeze the group's assets in US financial institutions.
The designation does not give the US the legal authority to carry out military strikes against Los Tiguerones or other gangs the administration has designated as terrorist groups—but a key element of Joint Task Force Western Hemisphere's expansion in Latin America has been joint military operations, including a US-Ecuadorian joint attack on a dairy farm where officials had claimed drug traffickers were operating.
The new designation "is part of [the administration's] narrative about a new 'War on Terror' against the narcos," said Finucane.
Glaeldys González Calanche, an analyst with the International Crisis Group, told The New York Times that Los Tiguerones has had diminishing power and influence in Ecuador in recent years and expressed surprise at the designation.
Ecuadorian gangs "operate at the lowest links of the chain" of drug trafficking operations in Latin America, González told the Times. “They provide services, like moving cargo from point A to point B. Ecuadorian groups are not decisive, they aren’t major players.”
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Mysterious Attacks on Ecuadoran Fishing Boats Carried Out by Covert CIA Operation: Report
“It begs the question about why you would need to do this. What would be the purpose of the secrecy?” said a former US government official.
Aug 13, 2026
The Washington Post reported on Thursday that recent mysterious attacks on Ecuadoran fishing boats were carried out as part of a covert CIA operation.
According to the Post, the strikes on the fishing boats, which took place in multiple instances near the Galápagos Islands earlier this year, are separate from the US Department of Defense's bombing campaign against purported drug-trafficking boats that was launched in September 2025 and has so far killed at least 220 people.
Survivors of a boat attack that occurred in March told the Post they remember coming under fire from small quadcopter drones that either dropped munitions on their vessels or directly crashed into them.
After being shipwrecked, the survivors said they were picked up by a nearby vessel, where they were taken aboard, and "hooded and cuffed by armed men, and transported to El Salvador—only to be returned later without explanation to Ecuador."
The Post noted that "no evidence has publicly emerged that the crew members were involved in drug trafficking," adding that "the Galápagos Islands have increasingly become a hub for drug traffickers, where local fishermen are known to pick up jobs delivering gas to smugglers heading to the United States."
Some former US officials with experience working in Latin America told the Post that they were bewildered about the need for a covert CIA boat strike campaign given that the Trump administration has openly boasted about its other attacks on vessels, which many human rights groups and international law experts have called acts of murder.
“It begs the question about why you would need to do this,” one former official said. “What would be the purpose of the secrecy?”
The covert boat strikes were also reported on Wednesday by The New York Times, which presented evidence that they originated in the US without naming their specific source.
Amnesty International last month raised suspicions of US involvement in the January disappearance of Ecuadoran fishing boat called Fiorella.
Amnesty's investigation of the Fiorella's disappearance found that the vessel, in the days before its disappearance, was "allegedly subjected to sustained monitoring by aircraft, patrol boats, and drones bearing United States markings," as the boat's captain sent "daily satellite messages to his family expressing his growing concern about the surveillance."
The ship vanished on January 20.
Two crew members who had departed the ship earlier in the day on a skiff to lay out fishing lines reported seeing "a large column of smoke in the distance in the direction of the Fiorella, but were unable to determine with certainty whether it was from a fire on board," wrote Amnesty.
The two crew members aboard the skiff are the only confirmed survivors of the incident, as the eight other men aboard the Fiorella are still missing.
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Mysterious Attacks on Ecuadorian Fishers Raise Fears of Expanded US Boat Bombings
“It would be one thing if the US didn’t have an overt maritime strike campaign, but they do, and they’re posting snuff films of boats going up in flames regularly,” said one expert.
Aug 12, 2026
An investigation published Wednesday by The New York Times has raised fresh questions about who attacked three Ecuadorian fishing vessels in the Pacific Ocean earlier this year—but for fishers and their families in the South American nation, the mystery is hardly new.
According to the Times, Ecuadorian fishers aboard the Fiorella, Negra Francisca Duarte II, and Don Maca were separately attacked by what witnesses called unidentified "gringos" using drones. Survivors said they "came under attack by English-speaking assailants wearing matching uniforms with American flag patches, but without any clear insignia to link them to an official government force."
International rights groups have called for an investigation after the Fiorella and its crew of eight disappeared in January amid Operation Southern Spear, President Donald Trump's largely ineffective campaign of extrajudicial strikes on boats that the US administration claims, without evidence, were smuggling drugs.
By the Pentagon's own admission, more than 220 people have been killed in at least 66 such strikes since last September. The US military says no civilians were killed in the strikes, a claim that anonymous government officials called "a fucking joke" and "a total whitewash."
This is a very worrying story. Ecuadorian fishermen are being attacked and killed, and the perpetrators seem to be either the U.S. military engaged in clandestine operations or an American mercenary company working for Bukele or another Central American country.
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— Aaron Reichlin-Melnick (@reichlinmelnick.bsky.social) August 12, 2026 at 7:12 AM
Government officials in countries including Colombia and Venezuela, as well as victims' relatives, have contradicted the US claim. The families of two Trinidadian men killed in one strike earlier this year filed wrongful death lawsuits against the United States. Relatives of a Colombian slain in another US strike also filed a complaint at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.
Some of the Ecuadorian fishers featured in the new Times piece say they were seized and interrogated by the attackers before being handed over to the Salvadoran navy, which conducts long-range maritime patrols and counternarcotics operations in the Eastern Pacific and occasionally intercepts vessels.
The new Times report says that a maritime patrol aircraft based at a military facility in El Salvador repeatedly flew toward and tracked the Ecuadorian fishing boats in the days before they were attacked or disappeared. An analysis of flight data found that the aircraft's course appeared to follow the vessels over several days.
Yet the aircraft was not listed among Pentagon operational aircraft. According to the Times, it was registered to a private company whose address was a UPS store mailbox in Virginia, deepening the mystery over who was operating it—and for whom.
“It would be one thing if the US didn’t have an overt maritime strike campaign, but they do, and they’re posting snuff films of boats going up in flames regularly," Brian Finucane, a former State Department lawyer who specializes in the laws of war, told the Times.
"And that’s what makes this even more squirrelly," added Finucane, now a senior adviser in the US Program at the International Crisis Group. “Who are these people that are operating, and under what authority? And they are using a UPS store as their company address? Come on.”
The Pentagon has denied involvement, claiming that US Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) did not know about the attacks or have a role in them. But the new findings raise the possibility that the attacks could have involved a private military contractor or another force operating in coordination with Washington's expanding anti-drug campaign.
“Who are these people that are operating, and under what authority? And they are using a UPS store as their company address?"
In addition to the boat bombing campaign—which the Pentagon has replaced with the newly created Joint Task Force Western Hemisphere—SOUTHCOM has launched Operation Total Extermination, a joint counternarcotics operation with Ecuadorian forces involving the deployment of US ground troops into the Andean nation.
In one operation in the campaign, Ecuadorian soldiers raided and destroyed a dairy farm in San Martín, Sucumbíos, on March 3. Ecuador claimed the site was a traffickers’ camp, but investigations by The New York Times and, later, Human Rights Watch found substantial evidence that it was a working cattle and dairy farm with no credible evidence of a criminal connection. HRW said four workers at the farm were detained and tortured by Ecuadorian forces, and that the broader operation was carried out with US assistance.
The Times investigation published Wednesday followed months of reporting by Ecuadorian and international media and human rights groups, including HRW, on the three fishing vessels and their crews.
In April, Primicias reported growing fear among fishermen in Manabí, Ecuador's major fishing province, where crews said they had been intercepted and attacked at sea. Fishers from the Don Maca and Negra Francisca Duarte II separately described being surrounded by drones and subsequently detained by what they believed were US personnel.
Don Maca's crew told El Universo that drones bombed their boat without warning on March 26. Fishers aboard said they escaped in small boats, approached a foreign vessel for help, and were instead handcuffed and hooded before eventually being transferred to Salvadoran authorities.
El Universo also separately reported a strikingly similar account from the crew of the Negra Francisca Duarte II. Captain Hernán Flores said a drone struck the boat on March 17, setting it ablaze and forcing all 16 fishermen into the water. When they approached a nearby blue vessel seeking assistance, Flores said, armed foreign personnel pointed weapons at them, bound them, and covered their heads.
In the case of the Fiorella, Primicias and El Universo reported that two fishers who had separated from the boat in a smaller vessel saw a drone circling above shortly before they spotted smoke on the horizon. Fiorella and those aboard it have never been found.
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More Civilian Attacks Feared as Pentagon Shifts Boat Strike Campaign to Countries Across Latin America
The US military's partnership with Ecuador has already been associated with unexplained drone strikes and torture of people wrongfully accused of drug trafficking.
Aug 05, 2026
The US and Ecuadorian joint attacks that occurred in March at a rural dairy farm where officials insisted drug traffickers were operating "could replicate over the rest of 2026" across Latin America, said one expert after the Pentagon announced that its boat bombing campaign would be expanded to "defeat all threats" within countries across the region.
US Southern Command, which has overseen the boat bombings—up to now known as Operation Southern Spear—and the killings of at least 221 people, announced Tuesday that the operation will now be known as Joint Task Force Western Hemisphere, with the US military "taking the fight to the enemy."
The "fight" the military referred to is largely against drug cartels operating in Latin America, with which President Donald Trump has claimed the US is in an "armed conflict."
But the US Congress has not authorized the attacks the US military has carried out as it's claimed to be fighting "narco-terrorists," including at least 66 boat bombings in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean—an operation that has cost $820 million so far.
Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle have introduced war powers resolutions aimed at stopping the Trump administration from continuing the boat bombings, but the efforts have failed, even as families have filed legal complaints alleging that their loved ones were wrongfully killed in the attacks.
The Drug Enforcement Agency's own data recently showed that the bombing of boats suspected of carrying drugs has done little-to-nothing to stop illegal substances from entering the US, while international law experts have emphasized that even if the US has been accurately targeting drug traffickers, the killings could constitute war crimes or mass murder.
Now, releasing a promotional video that resembled an action movie trailer, US Southern Command on Tuesday pledged to "synchronize US military operations with allies and partners to counter threats, strengthen regional security, and respond rapidly to crises across the Western Hemisphere."
JTF-WHEM is taking the fight to the enemy.
“Along with our Americas Counter Cartel Coalition partners, we will locate, close with, and destroy the enemies that threaten our hemisphere.” — #SOUTHCOM Commander Gen. Francis L. Donovan@DeptofWar @SecWar @The24MEU @USMC @USNavy… pic.twitter.com/k60WWBWOcf
— U.S. Southern Command (@Southcom) August 4, 2026
"Along with our America's Counter Cartel Coalition partners, we will locate, close with, and destroy the enemies that threaten our hemisphere," said Commander Francis Donovan of US Southern Command.
Donovan noted that 18 countries have backed the United States' stated mission of halting drug trafficking out of Latin America.
As Adam Isacson, the director for defense oversight at the Washington Office on Latin America, pointed out, leaders in Colombia and Peru have both expressed interest in hosting joint military operations with the US on their own soil.
President-elect Abelardo de la Espriella of Colombia has said he plans to join Trump's Shield of the Americas alliance, a group right-wing government across the hemisphere that have pledged to join in the fight against drug cartels—but which the civil society group Justice for Colombia warned may ultimately "impose US strategic interests on the region and could target left-wing activists and other opponents."
"Colombian communities have long opposed purely military solutions to the existence of armed groups," said the group last month. "Many welcomed peace talks under the [President Gustavo] Petro government, while highlighting that more needed to be done to protect social activists and deal with root causes of conflict. Many now fear that they will be targeted in a renewed emphasis on conflict."
Newly inaugurated Peruvian President Keiko Fujimori has also signaled a willingness to join the alliance after having campaigned on fighting crime rates in the South American country.
The Trump administration has also pushed Guatemalan and Honduran leaders to approve joint strikes against suspected drug gangs inside their borders.
With Joint Task Force dWestern Hemisphere, said New York Times reporter Maria Abi-Habib, the Pentagon is "standing up a task force that will see Latin American countries accept joint US strikes inside their borders. It moves the boat strikes from international waters to sovereign inland territories across the region."
US Southern Command spoke approvingly of a raid Guatemala conducted on an alleged drug lab earlier this year, saying in a social media post that the operation showed a "commitment to take the fight to narco-terrorists in their country."
Two people familiar with the push in Guatemala told the Times that the administration was advocating for joint strikes in the country to ultimately pressure Mexico, where President Claudia Sheinbaum has rejected similar requests.
Ecuador's partnership with Trump has brought allegations of torture, arbitrary detention, and unexplained drone strikes on at least three Ecuadorian fishing boats. In June, the prosecutor investigating the boat attacks was killed in an apparent assassination.
"Ecuador has been the proving ground" for Trump's so-called "Donroe Doctrine," said Drop Site News reporter Camila Lourdes Galarza, adding that the "media silence" regarding the US military's expansion in the region "has severely compromised all analysis."
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Calls for Independent Probe Into Reported US Bombing of Ecuadorian Boats Grow After Murder of Investigator
"How far does the 'war on drugs' go?" said a former Ecuadorian official. "Who is held accountable for the lives of Ecuadorian fishermen?"
Jul 24, 2026
The recently reported killing of the Ecuadorian prosecutor who had been investigating allegations that three boats from the country had been struck by the US and that dozens of survivors had been abducted and tortured by American forces, was "not a coincidence," said one congressman Friday as he called for a probe into the bombings.
"For almost a year, the US government has been illegally bombing fishing boats and killing people without evidence of wrongdoing," said Rep. Jesús "Chuy" García (D-Ill.). "And last month, Alexandra Bravo, the Ecuadorian prosecutor investigating boats that were attacked or disappeared, was murdered... There must be an independent investigation."
García's demand came a day after Drop Site News reported on Bravo's killing in the city of Manta on June 14.
Police say a hitman on a black motorcycle opened fire on Bravo and her sister at 11:00 am as they were leaving a cafe. Both women were killed and the prosecutor's driver was injured. There was "no sign of the police detail that had been assigned" to protect Bravo, leading the Police Directorate, which operates under the executive branch of President Daniel Noboa, a close ally of President Donald Trump, to investigate whether there had been an "internal security breach."
Bravo had been investigating the cases of three fishing boats—the Fiorella, the Negra Francisca, and the Don Maca—which were reportedly struck by drones in January and March.
The 36 surviving crew members of the latter two vessels reported that they were captured by US forces and subjected to torture before eventually being returned to Ecuador.
Eight fishermen went missing from the Fiorella, and their family members have reported that Ecuadorian authorities have provided little help to them as they look for answers, with the daughter of one missing fisherman saying an official had suggested the crew was involved in drug trafficking.
The three boats were hit with explosives as the Trump administration carried out "Operation Southern Spear," its campaign of boat bombings in the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific. The White House has insisted that the at least 66 strikes that have been carried out by US forces since last September were on boats that were carrying drugs, and the 221 people on board were involved in drug trafficking. Trump has claimed the US is in an armed conflict with Latin American drug cartels, but Congress has not authorized military force in the region.
Legal experts have said that even if the bombed vessels were ferrying illicit substances to the US, military attacks against civilians for their alleged involvement in drug trafficking is against international law.
According to Amnesty International, the Ecuadorian public prosecutor’s office has not submitted a formal request to the US for help with investigating the disappearance of the Fiorella and its crew.
Sources at the police department in Manta and at Human Rights Watch told Drop Site that Bravo had reported facing pressure from the attorney general's office regarding her investigation, with her superiors telling her to treat the alleged attacks on the boats only as "cases of disappearance" and to "close all lines of inquiry" after the 36 survivors of the Negra Francisca and the Don Maca returned, even though they showed signs of torture.
Meanwhile, as the US maintains it had nothing to do with bombing the three vessels, Drop Site reported that a US Coast Guard boat was detected near the Negra Francisca around the time of the bombing before the Coast Guard boat turned off its signal.
Two survivors of the Fiorella bombing, Christian Flores and Dimas Ignacio Álvarez, "corroborated seeing the Fiorella engulfed in smoke and surrounded by American assets."
"In their police statements, Flores and Álvarez described two US aircraft flying over the Fiorella on January 18; multiple grey American drones and a US-flagged patrol ship circling the vessel on January 19; and, on January 20—the day their crewmates disappeared—the large US-flagged patrol ship near the smoke," wrote Camila Lourdes Galarza at Drop Site.
Former Ecuadorian Minister of Foreign Affairs Guillaume Long said Thursday that US military presence in Ecuador as the two countries deepen their military partnership is "a clear violation of our people's sovereignty and popular will."
"Meanwhile, the families of Manta and Jaramijó wait for answers," said Long. "Eight families deserve truth and justice. How far does the 'war on drugs' go? Who is held accountable for the lives of Ecuadorian fishermen?"
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US-Ecuador Military Partnership Brings Torture, Deadly Drone Strikes, and Disappearances
“US-Ecuador cooperation on security has been too opaque and too dangerous for Ecuadorians," said a representative for Human Rights Watch.
Jul 21, 2026
Human rights advocates are urging Congress to investigate the deepening military relationship between the US and Ecuador, which they say has been marred by severe abuses against civilians, including torture, arbitrary detentions, unexplained drone strikes, and disappearances.
A report out Tuesday from Human Rights Watch documents how the Trump administration's cooperation with the right-wing government of Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa in response to organized crime in the country has been carried out under a veil of secrecy that has left few safeguards in place to protect human rights.
Dozens of victims, witnesses, lawyers, and others were interviewed for the report, which provides details about four incidents in which ordinary people were subject to abuse allegedly by Ecuadorian forces trained and armed by the United States as part of what the governments have called "Operation Total Extermination."
In one case—which was reported on by Common Dreams after being documented by local outlets in early March—Ecuadorian soldiers partnered with the US and stormed into the rural town of San Martín along the Colombian border in search of facilities owned by an armed group known as the Border Commandos.
Soldiers detained four dairy farmers without evidence of a crime and interrogated them for hours while beating, kicking, and striking them with rifle butts. One of the men said he was taken to the main house on the farm and waterboarded. According to the men, the soldiers doused the house with gasoline and set the property on fire.
Soldiers fired their weapons at another group of villagers who'd come to ask about the workers, which caused them to flee.
The four men were later taken to an unidentified military facility, where they said they were doused with water and electrocuted. Two of the men said soldiers pointed guns at them and threatened to kill them and cut off their fingers unless they confessed where they were keeping drugs and arms.
The men were released hours later without charges, and prosecutors said the soldiers failed to provide sufficient evidence to charge them. Human Rights Watch found they had no criminal records.
Days later, the military returned and dropped munitions on the remnants of the burned property and two others that had been abandoned. Human Rights Watch did not find evidence that the destroyed properties had any connection to armed criminal groups.
In a hearing before the US Senate Armed Services Committee, Gen. Francis L. Donovan described the operation as a "success" and said Ecuadorian forces had acted "professionally." The Trump administration has said US forces were "present" for the operation, but has not disclosed their role in the bombing of the houses or the torture of the farmworkers.
The Human Rights Watch report also details three attacks on fishing boats between January and March off the coast of the Galápagos Islands, which are possessed by Ecuador.
On January 20, the Fiorella disappeared along with eight crew members who remain missing more than six months later. Two surviving crew members, who'd left the main vessel to set fishing lines, said they suddenly lost contact with the ship while they were waiting to be picked up. As they searched for the vessel, they saw a "column of smoke" off in the distance, but no sign of the Fiorella.
They added that in the days before the ship went missing, they had seen what they thought were surveillance drones flying overhead as well as a gray patrol vessel flying an American flag nearby.
The families of the eight missing sailors have been demanding answers about their whereabouts for months with little response from the Ecuadorian government. The United Nations has issued urgent actions on behalf of the fishermen, calling on Ecuador to immediately search for them.
"The families of the eight individuals whose whereabouts are unknown fear that this is a case of enforced disappearance at the hands of the United States," said Ana Piquer, Americas director at Amnesty International, on Monday. "The US and Ecuadorian authorities must confirm or deny whether state agents from either country were involved, take all necessary steps to ascertain the fate and whereabouts of the victims, and provide reliable evidence showing what happened to them."
In March, two other boats—La Negra Francisca Duarte II and Don Maca—were hit with drones off the Galápagos. In both cases, the shipwrecked men were picked up by a blue and white ship by armed personnel wearing American military attire.
The fishermen were hooded, tied up, and in some cases beaten before being left on a hot metal deck for several hours without food, water, or adequate medical care.
Members of both crews said they saw the alleged US personnel destroy their fishing boats. They were then handed off to Salvadoran authorities and later sent back to Ecuador. Several of the men sustained serious injuries from the drone attacks, including severe burns, hearing loss, vision loss, broken and dislocated bones, and wounds from drone propellers.
Ecuadorian authorities have not confirmed that the attacks took place. According to the captain of La Negra Francisca Duarte II, and later an Ecuadorian port captain, Ecuadorian Coast Guard officers had boarded their ship for a routine inspection and found no evidence of illicit activity, just eight hours before the vessel was struck. No such inspections were reported aboard Don Maca.
The attacks closely resemble the ongoing campaign of extrajudicial boat bombings carried out by the United States, known as "Operation Southern Spear," in which at least 221 people have been killed across more than 60 attacks.
Though 13 of the survivors said they were detained by what appeared to be US personnel, the Department of Defense and Coast Guard denied involvement in all three attacks off the Galápagos.
“US-Ecuador cooperation on security has been too opaque and too dangerous for Ecuadorians,” said Juanita Goebertus, Americas director at Human Rights Watch. “Before more harm is done, the US Congress should demand real answers and effective safeguards.”
“Joint security operations against organized crime," Goebertus added, "should not become a cover for abuses."
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Rights Group Demands US Investigation Into Reported Bombing of Ecuadorian Fishing Boat
“The families of the eight individuals whose whereabouts are unknown fear that this is a case of enforced disappearance at the hands of the United States," said an advocate at Amnesty International.
Jul 21, 2026
Amnesty International is calling for a full investigation by the US government into the alleged bombing of an Ecuadorian fishing boat, the Fiorella, last January, as the family members of eight disappeared fishermen have spent months demanding answers about what happened to their loved ones in the midst of the Trump administration's boat bombing campaign in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean.
In "Operation Southern Spear," which the Trump administration has said is aimed at stopping drug trafficking from Latin America and in which at least 221 people have been killed in more than 60 bombings, US Southern Command has frequently announced strikes in the region since they began in September.
In the case of the Fiorella, the US military did not issue an announcement of a bombing after the boat "went up in smoke" on January 20, after which eight fishermen who were on board went missing in the midst of Operation Southern Spear.
Amnesty noted on Monday that in the case of two other Ecuadorian fishing vessels, Negra Francisca Duarte II and Don Maca, which were reportedly struck by drones in March and whose surviving crew members said they were captured and tortured by US forces, US Southern Command also did not publicly acknowledge the strikes, "despite reports from survivors stating that both vessels were allegedly sunk by unmanned aerial vehicles bearing markings attributed to the United States."
"If it were confirmed that the United States was responsible for the strike on the Fiorella, as well as for the strikes against the Negra Francisca Duarte II and the Don Maca, the total number of extrajudicial executions, enforced disappearances and other serious human rights violations associated with these operations could be much higher than previously estimated," said Amnesty.
The group's Evidence Lab used a vessel monitoring system to reconstruct the route covered by the Fiorella, finding the boat set sail from Jaramijó with 10 crew members on January 15.
The boat lost its internet connection shortly after setting out and went in and out of international waters, also sailing in the Galapagos Exclusive Economic Zone, between January 15-19.
"During the first days of the trip, no major incidents were reported," said Amnesty. "However, from the fourth day onwards, the Fiorella was allegedly subjected to sustained monitoring by aircraft, patrol boats and drones bearing United States markings. Juan Carlos Valencia, the fishing boat’s captain, sent daily satellite messages to his family expressing his growing concern about the surveillance."
On the morning of January 20, the boat sent two skiffs out with baited hooks, and at around 1:00 pm the two crew members on one of the boats saw "a large column of smoke in the distance in the direction of the Fiorella." The two crew members on the skiff were rescued by another fishing boat two days later, but "nothing more has been heard of the Fiorella or the second skiff since," said Amnesty.
Three months after the Fiorella disappeared following the apparent attack, the local organization Standing Committee for the Defense of Human Rights reported that the 36 crew members who had been aboard the Negra Francisca Duarte II and the Don Maca had been detained by US personnel after their boats were struck by drones, before being eventually returned to Ecuador.
Amnesty International, which met with the families of the disappeared crew members from the Fiorella, said the relatives suspect their loved ones may also have been captured and transferred to another country by the US.
“The families of the eight individuals whose whereabouts are unknown fear that this is a case of enforced disappearance at the hands of the United States," said Ana Piquer, Americas director at Amnesty International. "The US and Ecuadorian authorities must confirm or deny whether state agents from either country were involved, take all necessary steps to ascertain the fate and whereabouts of the victims, and provide reliable evidence showing what happened to them."
Family members reported that Ecuadorian officials have alluded to allegations that their loved ones were involved in drug trafficking and were therefore attacked by the US as part of Operation Southern Spear.
“The commander said to us: ‘You know what they went to do, so why are you looking for them?’" the daughter of one missing fisherman told Amnesty. "This made me really angry, and I said to him: ‘I’m here to look for my dad, all they did was go fishing. You should show some compassion and tell us the truth.’ The next day we went again [to the port authority] and they simply closed the door on us.”
The Ecuadorian Public Prosecutor's office has not submitted a formal request to the US for information to complete an investigation into the Fiorella's disappearance, said Amnesty.
“It’s as if the ship simply vanished and no one cares how it happened or what became of the people on board. Perhaps it just flew away? More than six months on from the disappearance, the Ecuadorian authorities must provide a clear account of what actions they have taken to establish the facts, what they know, what they do not know, and how they intend to address the legitimate demands of the families of those disappeared. The criminal investigation into these events must continue until those potentially responsible are identified and brought to justice,” said Piquer.
She added that "the Department of Justice and the investigative authorities of the US armed forces must investigate and establish possible criminal responsibility not only in relation to the Fiorella, but also for all other strikes on vessels on the high seas."
"Similarly, the US Congress must drive a parliamentary inquiry into this serious incident, with hearings and reports designed to establish the facts and determine the possible involvement of public agencies or private entities under its authority," she said. "In addition, all states must suspend international cooperation on intelligence and military equipment that could be used in such illegal operations."
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House Progressives Demand Pentagon Answer for Alleged Abuse in US-Ecuador Operation
"The United States cannot continue to be complicit in abuses abroad. There must be accountability," said Rep. Chuy García, who co-led a letter to the Pentagon.
May 13, 2026
Backed by anti-war and human rights organizations, 20 "deeply concerned" progressives in the US House of Representatives sent a letter to the Pentagon on Wednesday demanding answers about "reports of serious human rights violations and the bombing of what appear to have been civilian facilities during joint US-Ecuador military operations conducted in northern Ecuador."
While bombing Iran and boats allegedly running illegal drugs through the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean, President Donald Trump deployed US troops to Ecuador in March for a joint campaign combating "narco-terrorists" in the South American country.
Led by Democratic Reps. Greg Casar (Texas), Jesús "Chuy" García (Ill.), and Sara Jacobs (Calif.), the lawmakers called for "an explanation of the administration's legal justification for the involvement of US armed forces in these operations, which have not been authorized by Congress," as well as their immediate suspension "until these incidents are fully investigated."
The Democrats' letter to US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth cites reporting that one target "appears to have been a civilian dairy and cattle farm with no known links to armed groups or drug trafficking," where witnesses said "Ecuadorian military personnel interrogated and assaulted unarmed civilians, burned homes and infrastructure, and subjected detainees to torture."
"Beyond these recent incidents, we are concerned that our military is deepening its ties with the government of Ecuador, even as it undergoes an alarming authoritarian and anti-democratic drift," the Democrats wrote, pointing out that "President Daniel Noboa has overseen the violent repression of Indigenous-led protests, publicly threatened the Constitutional Court, and frozen the bank accounts of civil society organizations."
Noboa's allies "have also pursued questionable cases against his political opponents," as "Ecuadorians have endured more than two years of a prolonged state of emergency, marked by the military's domestic deployment to combat so-called 'narco-terrorists," the letter continues. "With investigative reporting now linking President Noboa's family business to drug trafficking and the same illicit networks he claims to be fighting, an independent and transparent investigation into these allegations is warranted."
The letter stresses that "if US forces provide new or continued security assistance to units that engaged in acts such as torture, extrajudicial killings, or enforced disappearances, and there is no credible investigation or prosecution underway, this would constitute a violation of the Leahy Laws, which prohibit assistance to foreign security forces credibly implicated in gross human rights violations without effective steps to bring those responsible to justice."
The Democrats—supported by Amnesty International USA, Center for Civilians in Conflict, Center for Economic and Policy Research, Friends Committee on National Legislation, Human Rights First, Latin American Working Group, Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns, StoptheDrugWar.org, Washington Office on Latin America, and Win Without War—demanded "a prompt and complete response" to their list of questions by May 22.
"The United States cannot continue to be complicit in abuses abroad. There must be accountability," García said on social media.
As El País reported Wednesday, the letter was made public as Noboa began a two-day trip to Washington, DC, during which he is set to meeting with US Vice President JD Vance and Organization of American States Secretary General Albert Ramdin.
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Boat Strike Survivors Say They Were Captured, Tortured by US Forces
"They treated us like animals," said an Ecuadorian fisher who survived an attack on the Don Maca.
Apr 21, 2026
President Donald Trump, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and US Southern Command have repeatedly taken to social media to brag about deadly boat bombings supposedly targeting drug traffickers in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean for nearly eight months. On Tuesday, survivors of some alleged US strikes on fishing boats accused American forces of torture.
The Ecuadorian fishing boat La Fiorella "went up in smoke" on January 20, and "the eight fishermen aboard have not been seen since," Camila Lourdes Galarza reported for Drop Site News on Tuesday. "Now, 36 survivors of two Pacific attacks fitting a similar profile alleged that they were abducted and tortured by American forces and taken by boat all the way to El Salvador before being returned to Ecuador."
The journalist spoke with attorneys, relatives, and survivors, including Hernán Flores, captain of La Negra Francisca Duarte II, which was bombed by a drone with a yellow cylinder on March 17. Flores said: "A lot of us had wounds all over our bodies from the explosion. One young man was bleeding so much he filled the floor of our lifeboat with blood... The drone had flown through our cabin window, torn my nephew's foot so bad you could see flesh and bone, and made the boat's roof cave in on the back of my neck. A few seconds later, an explosion shook the boat, causing a terrible ringing in our ears. Out of exasperation, the guys threw themselves into the water, some without life jackets, even the ones who don't know how to swim."
The survivors made their way to a blue boat with "spear" on the hull, full of armed, blond, English-speaking men in camouflage uniforms—who drew their guns, handcuffed the fishers, put hoods over their heads, and held them on the vessel's "scorching metal deck for over 24 hours, blistering their skin," Galarza reported. They were only given a bottle of water, and "all but one fisherman were denied medical attention, despite the severity of what they had just endured."
They were eventually returned to Ecuador, where Trump has recently deployed US forces for a joint campaign targeting "narco-terrorists." However, first, they were turned over to El Salvador's Coast Guard—which, on April 3, also intercepted 20 more Ecuadorian fishers with "vision and hearing loss, bruised limbs, and perforated arms."
According to Galarza, those fishers had been aboard the Don Maca, and "they reported a strikingly similar account of an alleged attack by US soldiers: a bombarded boat, a round of bullets, and no due process." Sebastián Palacios, one of the survivors allegedly held hostage for eight days, said that "they treated us like animals."
⚡️New from @dropsitenews.com: Rare Survivors of Pacific Boat Strikes Allege US Forces Kidnapped & Tortured ThemAs airstrikes & reports of torture under Ecuador’s US-backed military regime continue to mount, fishermen tell Drop Site...By Camila Lourdes Galarzawww.dropsitenews.com/p/rare-survi...
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— Drop Site (@dropsitenews.com) April 21, 2026 at 2:50 PM
Galarza noted that US SOUTHCOM directed questions about all three incidents to Ecuador, whose Port Authority hung up after hearing that a phone call requesting comment was from journalists.
Harriet Barber got a similar response from SOUTHCOM for her Tuesday reporting on the Don Maca attack in The Guardian. The journalist spoke with survivors, including Palacios, as well as an attorney representing the crew, Fernando Bastias Robayo of the Human Rights Council.
"A US vessel intercepted them and forced them aboard. Once they were detained, their fishing boat was blown up," said the lawyer. "They were arbitrarily hooded and later abandoned on the Salvadorian coast. Any apprehension followed by incommunicado detention constitutes an enforced disappearance."
"It was a form of psychological torture, not knowing what's really going to happen to your life and having your face covered," he added.
Palacios told Barber that "I get scared in the middle of the night. I can't sleep well. My ears still hurt... I think that's it for me. I'm done with fishing. Going back out there is impossible. I thought they were going to kill us."
“If there were no drugs aboard those boats, it’s a hugely embarrassing ‘false positive’ for US intelligence at a time when that intelligence is being used to kill people, no questions asked.”
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— Adam Isacson (@adamisacson.com) April 21, 2026 at 10:23 AM
Tuesday's reporting came just two days after SOUTHCOM announced on social media that "Joint Task Force Southern Spear conducted a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel operated by designated terrorist organizations... along known narco-trafficking routes in the Caribbean," killing three alleged "male narco-terrorists."
Sunday's strike brought the death toll from Trump's boat-bombing campaign to at least 180, according to The New York Times. The Intercept's tally is 181, while the Washington Office on Latin America believes 182 people are dead. Critics of the campaign have accused the US administration of "war crimes, murder, or both."
Responding to Trump's latest confirmed attack, Amnesty International USA on Monday condemned "three more murders at sea" and declared that "Congress must act to stop these bombings."
So far, both chambers of the Republican-controlled Congress have refused to pass war powers resolutions aimed at halting Trump's boat strikes. Similar measures targeting his aggression toward Venezuela and Iran have also failed to advance.
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More War in Latin America Feared as Farmers Describe Torture From US-Ecuadorian ‘Operation Total Extermination’
An Ecuadorian human rights group has called for a probe after “bombings, burning of homes, arbitrary detentions, torture, and threats against the civilian population” by the joint US-Ecuadorian military operation.
Mar 24, 2026
Just a day after President Donald Trump suggested that he'd use his crushing economic blockade in a bid to "take" Cuba, an administration official said much more American warfare is on the horizon across Latin America.
It's called "Operation Total Extermination," according to Joseph M. Humire, the acting assistant secretary of war for homeland defense and Americas security affairs, who testified last week before the House Armed Services Committee.
Humire explained in written testimony that beginning on March 3, the US Department of Defense (which the Trump administration refers to as the Department of War) "supported, at the request of Ecuador, bilateral kinetic actions against cartel targets along the Colombia-Ecuador border."
"The joint effort," Humire said, "is the start of a military offensive by Ecuador against transnational criminal organizations with the support of the US, setting the pace for regional, deterrence-focused operations against cartel infrastructure throughout Latin America and the Caribbean."
The operation with Ecuador, led by the right-wing president Daniel Noboa, is part of "Operation Southern Spear," the Trump administration's illegal bombing campaign in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific Ocean, targeted at boats accused, with little evidence, of ferrying drugs to the US.
The latest of these bombings, which killed at least two more people, occurred on Friday and brought the total death toll since September of last year up to at least 160.
No casualty counts have yet been released by the US or Ecuadorian government for its operations to target what they said were "domestic terrorist organizations." But reports from those on the ground suggest they may have been similarly bloody.
Víctor Gómez, a journalist for the Ecuadorian outlet Radio Sucumbíos, conducted interviews with the residents of the rural town of San Martín in northeastern Ecuador near the Colombian border, who said their community was attacked twice by Ecuadorian and American forces on March 3 and 6.
Noboa celebrated the attacks on the area, which he said housed "a training ground for drug traffickers," and reportedly the home of "Mono Tole," who is the leader of the Colombian drug trafficking group known as the Border Commandos.
But Gómez described the town as having "no trenches, no firing ranges, no traces of a clandestine military infrastructure," adding that "the only things there are horses, cows, and donkeys, at least that's what can be seen on the Radio Sucumbíos cameras."
Locals, many of whom did not have their names published to avoid retaliation, describe military patrols landing on the riverbank on March 3 and launching an "ambush" against four farmers.
“They tied my hands and feet and then hung me up. They put me in a bucket of water, as long as I could stand it… they kicked me, they hit me with the butt of a gun," one of the workers described.
Another said that the soldiers "were looking for someone we didn't know... they told us to hand things over, but we had nothing to hand over."
The soldiers then reportedly "doused the main house and the wooden kitchen with gasoline" and set it ablaze, leaving the flames to consume large amounts of farm equipment.
As residents attempted to advocate for their loved ones, the farm owner said, "The commander in charge wouldn't let us near; they greeted us with gunfire until they took them away."
The four captured farmers were reportedly transported by helicopter to the capital of Sucumbíos, Lago Agrio, where one of the young men described being taken to a tiny room and tortured.
“They shocked us with that thing they called a taser," he said. "They poured water on me and placed it on my ribs and asked us questions."
After finding no evidence of guilt, authorities released the four men near a hospital in the capital.
Three days later, planes and helicopters flew over San Martín, dropping bombs on the ruins of the same house that had already been burnt to the ground three days earlier and on another abandoned house.
Video of that bombing was shared on social media by the Ecuadorian Armed Forces.
“First they burned it on the 3rd, and then on the 6th they came to bomb it. That’s what they did," said the farm's owner.
“How can it be a training camp if this is a livestock area?" he asked. "There is nothing to justify it, there are no training grounds, there is nothing."
The Alliance for Human Rights Ecuador has called for an investigation into the military's alleged "bombings, burning of homes, arbitrary detentions, torture, and threats against the civilian population," which it said were "serious violations of international humanitarian law."
The fallout from the attack has spilled over to create an international incident with neighboring Colombia. Two weeks after the bombing of San Martín, an unexploded 500 lb. bomb was discovered on a farm on the other side of the San Miguel River in Colombia's Putumayo region.
The bomb was identified as a US-made Mark-82. According to the New York Times, "had the bomb exploded, it would have done so with the force of 192 pounds of TNT" and could have harmed people as far as over 1,900 feet away.
"We're being bombed by Ecuador," said Colombian President Gustavo Petro in response to the explosive's discovery. Noboa denied the accusation, saying that "we are acting in our territory, not yours."
Following the US military's January abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, whom the US Department of Justice accused of drug trafficking, leaks have suggested that the US may soon attempt to bring similar charges against Petro, another left-wing leader who has resisted cooperation with Trump. Petro has denied accusations of drug trafficking.
One unnamed official told Nick Turse of The Intercept that attacks along the Ecuador-Colombia border "increasingly look like a coordinated campaign to foment 'discord' if not conflict" in the country.
In his hearing before Congress, Humire said that the US military was providing Ecuador with “capabilities that they otherwise would not have."
Humire said he was not sure how many strikes have been conducted on land so far as part of Operation Total Extermination, but responded "yes" when asked by the committee's ranking member, Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.), if the Department of Defense would “be moving to a lot more terrestrial strikes."
He said that these attacks were "just the beginning" of a much broader campaign, adding that the US has entered into agreements with 17 partner nations in the Western Hemisphere as part of the so-called Americas Counter Cartel Coalition.
While Humire said the nations that have reached these agreements "want this support and most of them all are looking for this,” the same cannot necessarily be said for the people living in the crossfire of the operation.
Gomez said that the people of San Martín are still living with “psychological trauma” following the attack. According to the town's vice president, Vicente Garrid, families are living in constant fear that their homes could be targeted next.
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