Medellín, Colombia – The U.S. Southern Command announced last Wednesday that it had launched a “lethal kinetic strike on a vessel operated by Designated Terrorist Organizations,” killing four people.
The strike came just weeks after the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) met to discuss the campaign’s legality on March 13.
Wednesday marked the 47th reported attack since the Donald Trump administration began ‘Operation Southern Spear’ in September, which has claimed the lives of at least 163 people in the Caribbean Sea and Eastern Pacific Ocean.
At the IACHR hearing in Guatemala City earlier this month, various human rights and international law experts, including the United Nations special rapporteur for human rights, Ben Saul, denounced the strikes.
“These unprovoked serial extrajudicial killings have no justification under international law and gravely violate the right to life. They are not actions in national self-defense, personal self-defense, or the defense of others,” said Saul, calling for the prosecution of the military and political leaders behind the attacks.
The U.S. has repeatedly defended the strikes describing them as a justified response to the deaths caused by drugs entering the States.
Jamil Dakwar, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Human Rights Program, highlighted the need to hold the U.S. to the same legal standards as any other country for their part in these “premeditated and intentional extrajudicial killings.”
Human Rights Watch (HRW) also condemned the United States’ bombing campaign in Latin America as illegal in a statement published this Tuesday.
“The United States’ latest strike on a vessel in the Caribbean, which reportedly killed four people, highlights a sustained pattern of unlawful use of lethal force outside any context of armed conflict, amounting to extrajudicial executions,” said the rights group.
“These strikes aren’t one-off incidents, they’re part of a pattern of using military force where the law does not permit it,” said Sarah Yager, HRW’s Washington Director. “The fact that these strikes have faded from public attention does not make these violations any less grave or unlawful.”
Families of the dead have already launched legal challenges. Relatives of two fishermen killed off the coast of Venezuela in October – Chad Joseph and Rishi Samaro – filed legal complaints against the U.S. government in January. The U.S. has never publicly identified those killed or provided evidence of their wrongdoing.
Featured image: A boat strike carried out in October 2025. Image credit: US navy.
