April 12, 2026 / 10:07 PM EDT / CBS/AFP
The U.S. military said Sunday that strikes on two boats in the eastern Pacific killed five people and left one survivor, bringing the campaign’s reported death toll to at least 168.
U.S. Southern Command said the attacks took place on April 11 and released aerial video of the operations. The command described the vessels as “transiting along known narco‑trafficking routes” and identified those killed as “male narco‑terrorists.” Southern Command said one person survived the first strike and that three people were killed in the second. The public announcement did not include evidence tying the boats to drug trafficking.
Southern Command said it notified the U.S. Coast Guard to conduct a search and rescue for the survivor; there was no immediate update on the outcome of that search.
The strikes are part of a U.S. campaign targeting suspected drug-smuggling boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific that began in September. In at least six earlier incidents, people initially survived strikes, prompting searches. Some of those searches were later called off, while in an October case two survivors were recovered by a Navy helicopter and returned to Ecuador and Colombia.
The military’s approach to survivors has drawn intense scrutiny. In the campaign’s first strike on Sept. 2, two people who survived an initial hit were killed in a follow‑on attack, an outcome that prompted accusations the second strike could amount to a war crime. Lawmakers who viewed video of that operation criticized it, while the Defense Department and some congressional Republicans have argued that follow‑on strikes can be justified if survivors still pose a threat.
The Trump administration has defended the program as necessary to disrupt narcotics trafficking, labeling the suspected smugglers “unlawful combatants” and telling Congress the U.S. is engaged in a “non‑international armed conflict” with cartels. Families of two Trinidadian men killed in a U.S. missile strike in the Caribbean have filed a lawsuit arguing those killings lacked legal justification.