13 victims of US boat strikes identified in investigation

A five-month investigation has identified 13 previously unnamed victims of U.S. military strikes on boats suspected of carrying narcotics in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, a campaign that has killed nearly 200 people.

It remains unclear whether the United States has ever identified any of its 194 victims before attacking them. Only three names had previously emerged, following lawsuits filed by families against the White House.

The Trump administration has consistently justified the killings, which began during the military buildup toward Venezuela last year, arguing that those targeted were “narco-terrorists” transporting drugs to the U.S.

A joint effort by 20 journalists led by the Latin American Center for Investigative Journalism (CLIP) this week published the identities of 13 of those killed. Some showed no indication of involvement in drug trafficking.

The CLIP report found that all identified victims, including those possibly involved in drug trafficking, came from extremely poor communities across Latin America and the Caribbean.

“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,” said María Teresa Ronderos, director and co-founder of CLIP.

“The US is not taking down any Pablo Escobar or Joaquín ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán,” she added.

The investigation also underscored conclusions by other reports and security analysts: the strikes have not reduced the flow of drugs to the U.S. but have torn apart communities already weakened by organized crime and state neglect.

“There are communities where they stopped fishing for several weeks – and if they do that, people go hungry – because they were terrified of being bombed,” said Ronderos.

The main finding, she said, was putting names and faces to a greater number of victims, “to show that these were flesh-and-blood people” – even though the vast majority remain unidentified.

The investigation brought together journalists, media outlets, and collectives from Colombia (CasaMacondo, Verdad Abierta, and 360-grados.co), Venezuela (Alianza Rebelde Investiga), and Trinidad and Tobago Guardian, with support from NGOs Airwars (UK) and El Veinte (Colombia).

Ronderos said the investigation was “extremely difficult” due to fear of speaking out among relatives and communities, and local authorities. “Official government sources, prosecutors’ offices – nobody wants to speak because everyone fears damaging relations with the US and facing retaliation,” she added.

Of the 16 victims now identified, eight are Venezuelans: Juan Carlos Fuentes, 43; Luis Ramón Amundarain, 36; Eduard Hidalgo, 46; Dushak Milovcic, 24; and Robert Sánchez, Jesús Carreño, Eduardo Jaime and Luis Alí Martínez, whose ages are unknown.

Three are Colombians: Alejandro Andrés Carranza Medina, 42, and Ronald Arregocés and Adrián Lubo (ages unknown). Two are from Ecuador: Pedro Ramón Holguín Holguín, 40, and Carlos Manuel Rodríguez Solórzano, 34; two are Trinidadians: Chad Joseph, 26, and Rishi Samaroo (age unknown); and one is from Saint Lucia: Ricky Joseph (age unknown).

Amundarain and Fuentes were drivers from Güiria, Venezuela, who crossed the Gulf of Paria to Trinidad and Tobago after being promised work at a car wash.

A few days later, they were offered a job on a small boat journey with two others. On 3 October, the boat was bombed. Their widows told CLIP that neither man had any involvement in drug trafficking, but the report notes that “all signs suggest” they were “about to make a ‘run’, the local term for transporting illicit cargo.” The boat’s direction from Trinidad and Tobago to Venezuela drew attention: “Boats carry drugs from South America northwards, not the reverse,” said Ronderos.

In several cases, victims were fishers with no indication of drug trade involvement, such as the Colombian and two Trinidadians whose families have sued the U.S. But even those involved generally fit the profile of people who turned to transporting drugs to survive crushing poverty, the report found.

In the eight months since the airstrikes began, the U.S. has not provided any evidence that any of the 194 victims were involved in drug trafficking.

A spokesperson for U.S. Southern Command said all strikes were “deliberate, lawful and precise, directed specifically at narco-terrorists and their enablers. We have full confidence in the operations and intelligence professionals who inform our missions.”

Ronderos said that even if all those killed were transporting drugs, “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.”

Brian Finucane, a senior adviser at the International Crisis Group and a former U.S. State Department lawyer, said the boat strikes were never “a serious counter-drug operation” by Trump. “I think this was in part a military spectacle to give the illusion of the administration doing something ‘macho’ about drugs,” he added.

Finucane warned that the killings risk being “normalised” by the population and U.S. politicians, or becoming “‘background noise’ while the administration is engaged in so many different military misadventures, such as the ongoing war with Iran.”

Organisations, countries, and the United Nations have condemned the attacks as extrajudicial executions, yet they continue.

Meanwhile, local communities bear the burden, said Ronderos: “Whether those men were doing legal or illegal work, children were left without the person who brought food home, in families that were already extremely poor.”