US says it killed five people in strike on alleged drug boat

The United States military has said that it has killed five people in a strike on an alleged drug trafficking boat in the eastern Pacific, continuing a campaign condemned by legal scholars and rights groups as extrajudicial killings.

US Southern Command (SOUTHCOM), which oversees military operations in Latin America and the Caribbean, said on Tuesday that five people were killed in the strike.

“On October 27, under the direction of SOUTHCOM, Joint Task Force Western Hemisphere executed a lethal, kinetic strike on a go-fast vessel operating along established narco-trafficking routes in the Eastern Pacific,” it said in a social media post. “Confirmed intelligence revealed the vessel’s active involvement in narco-trafficking. The operation killed five narco-terrorists.”

The administration of President Donald Trump has previously killed at least 238 people in 68 reported strikes in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific since the campaign first began in September 2025, according to a tracker from the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), a US-based research group that promotes human rights and democracy.

Tuesday’s strike appears to bring the reported total to 243 people. SOUTHCOM has often accompanied its announcements with videos that purportedly show vessels being struck.

The government has rarely shared details to substantiate its claims that those targeted are involved in drug trafficking, and relatives of some of those killed have said that they were fishermen or workers who were not involved in the drug trade.

The Trump administration has designated numerous criminal groups in Latin America as foreign “terrorist” organisations. Legal experts reject that framing and say that drug trafficking is a criminal activity against which military strikes are not permitted.

“This is the 6th lethal boat strike in the past 4 months,” Adam Isacson, an analyst at WOLA who has tracked the strikes, said in a social media post in response to SOUTHCOM’s announcement on Tuesday.

“The pace is slower than before, but the administration and its commanders persist in grinding out illegal killings every few weeks, with no discernible impact on the drug trade. A bleak pre-midterms message.”