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human rights
13 of the Nearly 200 People Murdered by Trump and Hegseth Identified for First Time
“It’s a double tragedy—not only because of the unlawful killings, but because the victims are erased, reduced to anonymity,” said one human rights advocate.
May 15, 2026
The 57 confirmed bombings of boats that the Trump administration has carried out so far since last September have shattered families and communities across Latin America, with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and US Southern Command never acknowledging the identities of the at least 192 people they've killed, beyond declaring them "narco-terrorists."
But despite the concerted effort to keep the names and any information about the victims hidden—their identities "blown away over vast stretches of ocean," as a new report states—20 journalists led by the Latin American Center for Investigative Journalism (CLIP) managed to identify 13 of the men whose killings have been called "murders" by legal experts and rights advocates.
The journalists and researchers represented CasaMacondo, Verdad Abierta, 360-grados.co, and NGO El Veinte in Colombia; Alianza Rebelde Investiga in Venezuela; the Trinidad and Tobago Guardian; and Airwars in the UK.
The investigation, titled "Bombed, Without the Right to a Defense," was completed despite widespread fears of speaking out about the bombings in the affected communities.
"Some relatives of victims in Venezuela and in Santa Marta, Colombia, say they have received threats, as sources confirmed to journalists in this alliance," reads the report. "Authorities have remained largely opaque, and the officials willing to talk do so only off the record, wary of dragging their countries into conflict with [US President Donald] Trump."
Three people named in the report had already been identified publicly in legal complaints—Trinidadians Chad Joseph and Rishi Samaroo, whose families filed a complaint in the US federal court; and Colombian Alejandro Carranza Medina, whose family filed a petition with the US-based Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.
The men identified for the first time by CLIP include:
- Juan Carlos Fuentes, a bus driver who told his family he was "going to have to do something risky to see if I can make ends meet" after his bus broke down, and who left behind three children and a grandson;
- Luis Ramón Amundarain, a motorcycle taxi driver and fisherman with a wife and five children;
- Eduard Hidalgo, a fisherman who had been deported from the US in December 2025;
- Jesús Carreño of Venezuela;
- Eduardo Jaime, a "beloved indoor soccer player" in his hometown of Güiria, Venezuela;
- Dushak Milovcic, a student at the National Guard Academy in Venezuela who became involved in drug transporting, starting as "a lookout for smugglers";
- Ricky Joseph, a well-known fishmerman in Savannes Bay, Saint Lucia, whose family lost contact with him after a bombing on February 13 and who is believed to be one of the victims;
- Pedro Ramón Holguín Holguín, who was registered as a fish and seafood wholesaler in Ecuador;
- Carlos Manuel Rodríguez Solórzano, who was rescued by Costa Rican authorities but died following an attack on his boat;
- Luis Alí Martínez, who had a criminal record for drug trafficking and other crimes;
- Ronald Arregocés of Riohacha, Colombia;
- Adrián Lubo, of Riohacha, Colombia, who was called "a great captain" by a person who knew him; and
- Robert Sánchez, who was traveling with his cousin, Amundarain, when the boat they were on was bombed.
Another man was identified by his nickname, and two unnamed people, including an Ecuadorian man who helped survivor Jonathan Obando escape a bombing and later died, were included in the report.
“It’s a double tragedy—not only because of the unlawful killings, but because the victims are erased, reduced to anonymity,” John Walsh, of the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), told CLIP and the reporting alliance.
The report emphasizes that all of the victims it identified came from poor families and communities. In Uribia, Colombia, where at least two bodies washed ashore after a boat attack, 92% of residents "lack adequate education, healthcare, or basic public services."
"In those conditions, recruiting young men to transport cocaine is easy work—and the pay can be good," reads the report.
A boatman in Uribia told CLIP that "most people here aren’t the owners" of vessels or the drugs they carry. “The people who own the cargo are almost always outsiders—even international players."
María Teresa Ronderos, director and co-founder of the CLIP, told The Guardian the report affirms that despite the administration's repeated claims that the military is defending "our nation’s interest" and protecting Americans from those who are "trafficking deadly narcotics" like fentanyl and cocaine, “the US is not taking down any Pablo Escobar or Joaquín ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán."
“Despite the US claim that the strikes are fighting narco-terrorism, what is actually happening is that young people living in extremely precarious conditions, doing whatever work they can to support their families, are being targeted," Ronderos said.
As the investigation into the identities of the boat strike victims illustrates, the people the Trump administration is killing are not in fact the "al Qaeda of our hemisphere" as repeatedly claimed by SecDef.www.elclip.org/los-bombarde...
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— Brian Finucane (@bcfinucane.bsky.social) May 15, 2026 at 10:13 AM
The boat that Fuentes and Amundarain, who had both gone to Trinidad and Tobago to work, were on was traveling from the Caribbean country to Venezuela, calling into question the claim that the vessel was trafficking drugs.
"Boats carry drugs from South America northwards, not the reverse,” Ronderos told The Guardian.
Legal experts have emphasized that even in the cases of victims who were involved in the drug trade, the bombings still legally qualify as extrajudicial killings, or even murder. Trump informed Congress in October that the White House views the US as being in an armed conflict with drug cartels in Latin America, claiming a rationale for carrying out the boat strikes. But no conflict has officially been declared, and rights experts warn that the military has clearly violated international law by targeting the survivors of some of the boat attacks in "double-tap" strikes.
“The deaths of Joseph and Samaroo were clearly extrajudicial killings,” Steven Watt, an attorney with the ACLU who is working on the case brought by the two Trinidiadian families, told CLIP. He added that "the Trump administration’s argument—that a 'war on drugs' justifies violent strikes like these—cannot legally excuse the killings."
Brian Finucane of the International Crisis Group told CLIP that "the law of war permits violence otherwise prohibited, but only during genuine armed conflict—a threshold the Trump administration has failed to meet, as it has not even identified who the US is supposedly fighting."
“Beyond that foundational problem, the administration’s suggestion that vaguely defined ‘enablers’ may be targetable raises further concerns that it is violating the rules of its own bogus legal paradigm," Finucane said.
Ronderos added that “there is no death penalty for cocaine trafficking."
"So the fact that they were killed without even having the chance to defend themselves is deeply troubling," she told The Guardian.
In accordance with international and domestic laws, the US has historically treated drug trafficking on the high seas as a criminal offense and has ensured those who are found trying to bring drugs to the US are brought to justice in court.
A spokesperson for US Southern Command told the reporters that the bombings have been “deliberate, lawful, and precise, directed specifically at narco-terrorists and their enablers," and that the US has "full confidence in the operations and intelligence professionals who inform our missions.”
But the administration has not released any evidence showing the strikes have targeted major drug trafficking operations, and as Common Dreams reported last month, data from US Customs and Border Protection shows little evidence that the strikes are stopping the flow of illicit substances.
“CBP’s seizures of fentanyl at the US-Mexico border had been declining, often sharply, since mid-2023. But since early 2025, the declines stopped,” said Adam Isacson of WOLA at the time. “Halfway into fiscal 2026, seizures are almost exactly half of 2025’s full-year total: a flat trendline.”
Finucane told The Guardian that the boat strikes have never been “a serious counter-drug operation."
"I think this was in part a military spectacle to give the illusion of the administration doing something ‘macho’ about drugs,” Finucane said.
Walsh said Hegseth and Trump "want to impress the public, to make Americans believe that they, unlike previous governments, are finally ending the terrible problem of drug trafficking."
"The profound cruelty and indifference with which they order these systematic and intentional killings allows them to project this menacing image of faceless ‘narco-terrorists,'" he added. "In doing so, they shock many Americans while numbing their sense that the US officials responsible for these murders should be held accountable.”
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The NBA's Other Human Rights Quagmire
The league must rethink its commercial partnership with Rwanda, whose army and senior officials the US government recently sanctioned for backing a deadly armed group that is committing “horrific human rights abuses.”
May 10, 2026
As an iconic sports league with a deep historic commitment to social justice, two of the National Basketball Association’s commercial branding relationships contradict the league’s values.
Questions are being raised about the branding deal the NBA struck with the United Arab Emirates, ignoring the killer drones and other support it is sending to a militia which the United Nations found to be committing genocide in Sudan.
Much less critical attention has been paid to the NBA’s commercial partnership with Rwanda, whose army and senior officials the US government recently sanctioned for backing a deadly armed group that is committing “horrific human rights abuses.” Rwanda has been a central partner in the Basketball Africa League (BAL), the NBA’s first professional basketball league outside North America. The Rwandan government pays the NBA between $6 million and $7 million annually to be a sponsor and to host some of the BAL playoffs. And Rwanda’s national airline is the official travel partner for the BAL.
The Los Angeles Clippers signed their own sponsorship deal with Rwanda last year. “Visit Rwanda” is their official jersey patch sponsor, so it appears on all uniforms. There is “Visit Rwanda” branding in the Clippers’ arena, and it is the official coffee sponsor for the team.
The NBA and the Clippers have some uncomfortable decisions to make. Should they continue to accept money from a government that is in large part responsible for one of the largest humanitarian emergencies in the world?
The uncomfortable truth for the NBA and the Clippers is that Rwanda invaded eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in 2022 and dramatically escalated its invasion last year, deploying up to 12,000 troops and backing a very violent proxy rebel group known as the M23. Under Rwandan command and control, the M23 has committed extensive human rights abuses, including mass killings targeted at certain ethnic groups, torture, and forced deportations. Over 5 million people in DRC are now displaced from their homes due to the conflict, and 10 million people are now at risk of starvation, as M23 “has driven farmers from their land… and blocked food imports.”
NBA deputy commissioner Mark Tatum responded to a bipartisan letter from US senators in September 2024, "If American policies were to change regarding business activities in and relating to Rwanda or any other BAL market, our actions would, of course, change accordingly."
Therein lies the rub. US policy on Rwanda has changed suddenly and significantly over the last two months, with major implications for the NBA’s close involvement with Rwanda. Just days following the signing of a peace accord between Rwanda and DRC brokered by the US and overseen by President Donald Trump last December, Rwanda and its proxy force launched a new, bloody offensive that left 200,000 more civilians displaced. Instead of pulling back to make peace, Rwanda doubled down on war right after telling the White House it would do the opposite.
The breach of the peace agreement has since led to a major shift in long-standing US policy on Rwanda. Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated in December that “Rwanda’s actions are… a clear violation of the Washington Accords…, and the United States will take action to ensure promises made to the President are kept.” US Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz then argued that “Rwanda is leading the region… toward more war.”
The US government has followed up with a series of actions, including placing sanctions on the entire Rwandan army, visa restrictions on senior Rwandan officials, suspending a US-Rwanda health agreement, and canceling an investment conference and negotiations with Rwanda over a new development finance project.
M23 forces continue to occupy nearly all strategic areas of eastern DRC, Rwanda maintains 7,000 troops there, and the conflict is deepening. Notably, the DRC government is also responsible for many human rights abuses, and it must halt its partnerships with deadly armed groups.
Rwanda is also profiting from the deadly trade in illicit gold and other minerals from eastern DRC, minerals that provide fuel for the conflict. Rwanda-backed M23 occupies key gold and critical minerals mines and exports the minerals to Rwanda. Despite having no major domestic gold mines, Rwanda is estimated to have skyrocketed its gold exports to $2 billion in 2025, a more than five-fold increase from four years ago. Ironically, most of their smuggled gold exports go to the UAE, the other major NBA partner.
Because of Rwanda’s heinous behavior in eastern DRC, several major sports teams have recently halted their partnerships with the Rwandan government following campaigns from human rights groups. The English soccer club Arsenal ended its commercial branding deal with Rwanda following a campaign by the group Gunners for Peace, as did German soccer giant Bayern Munich.
The NBA’s main defense of its commercial partnership with Rwanda has been that its dealings have been consistent with US policy. That policy has now changed in response to Rwanda’s unwillingness to end its greed-fueled military intervention in DRC.
The NBA and the Clippers have some uncomfortable decisions to make. Should they continue to accept money from a government that is in large part responsible for one of the largest humanitarian emergencies in the world? Should they continue to be part of Rwanda’s strategy of “sportswashing” its image? Can they follow in the footsteps of Arsenal and Bayern Munich and drop Rwanda’s commercial branding sponsorship? These questions won’t garner the same attention as gambling players and tanking teams, but the stakes for millions of Congolese lives couldn’t be greater.
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'Each of These Is a Murder': Trump Admin Conducts 3rd Deadly Boat Strike in 5 Days
"Drug suspects should be arrested and prosecuted, not summarily executed," a human rights expert said.
May 09, 2026
The Trump administration continued its illegal bombing of small boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific on Friday, killing two and leaving one survivor in its third such strike in five days.
US Southern Command announced the attack on social media, claiming that "intelligence confirmed the vessel was transiting along known narco-trafficking routes in the Eastern Pacific and was engaged in narco-trafficking operations."
"Under [President Donald] Trump's illegal orders, the US military conducted its third boat strike in five days against supposed drug smugglers, killing at least two. Each of these is a murder. Drug suspects should be arrested and prosecuted, not summarily executed," former Human Rights Watch executive director Kenneth Roth wrote on social media Saturday in response to the news.
Friday's strike marks the 57th by the Trump administration and raises the death toll from the boat-strike campaign, which experts say is illegal even if every boat targeted is ferrying drugs, to 192.
"Really absurdly, there’s been no impact on flows of drugs toward the United States."
"What do you call a US citizen who smuggles drugs, SOUTHCOM? A 'narco-terrorist'?" social media user Andrew Marinelli said in response to the Southern Command announcement. "If a US citizen [allegedly] drove drugs into Canada and they blew him away with a drone strike, would you accept it?"
The administration has also not provided evidence for its claims that the boats belong to drug traffickers, and relatives of the victims say at least some of those killed were simply on the water to fish.
Friday's strike was notable in that it left behind a survivor and that US Southern Command said it had activated the US Coast Guard to conduct a search and rescue operation.
The announcement may reflect a response to backlash after news broke last year that, in the administration's first such strike, commanders had ordered a vessel bombed twice when it became clear there were survivors, in keeping with Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth's directive to "kill everybody."
Despite scrutiny, the campaign has continued and even escalated in the past few weeks. There have been three such bombings since the beginning of May, according to The Intercept: One on May 4 in the Caribbean that killed two, one on May 5 in the Pacific that killed three, and the Pacific strike on May 8 that killed two. The reported survivor remains missing.
While the Trump administration claims the strikes have dramatically reduced the flow of illegal drugs into the US, evidence reveals this is not the case, according to an Intercept analysis published May 4.
For example, Trump claimed that drugs entering the US by sea had decreased by 97%, but the administration's own data contradicts this claim, retired Rear Adm. William Baumgartner told The Intercept.
Adam Isacson, the director for defense oversight at human rights group Washington Office on Latin America, said, "Really absurdly, there’s been no impact on flows of drugs toward the United States,” noting that Customs and Border Protection seized 6,000 pounds more cocaine at all US borders in the seven months following the strikes than in the seven months before.
As Sanho Tree, who directs the Institute for Policy Studies' Drug Policy Project, put it, "It wouldn’t be the first time this administration just made up something out of whole cloth."
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