UN Expert Says US Strikes on Alleged Drug Boats May Constitute Crimes against Humanit
UN Expert Says US Strikes on Alleged Drug Boats May Constitute Crimes against Humanity
M.U.H
22/09/202613
TEHRAN: A UN special rapporteur said US strikes on vessels accused of drug trafficking in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific violate international law and may constitute crimes against humanity, with at least 223 people killed in 68 attacks since September 2025.
In a report published Monday, Ben Saul, the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights and counterterrorism, said US forces had struck 68 vessels in international waters between September 2025 and August 2026, describing the attacks as unjustified uses of lethal force and potential serial extrajudicial killings.
The findings came days after the US military announced another strike on a vessel in the Caribbean that killed four people.
The administration of US President Donald Trump has portrayed the operations as part of an armed conflict against drug-trafficking groups and has argued that the strikes are necessary to prevent the flow of lethal drugs into the United States.
The UN findings, however, directly challenge that justification, stating that drug trafficking does not in itself constitute an armed attack that would permit the use of military force under international law.
The report said the US attacks were unjustified under national and international law and amounted to “serial extrajudicial killings in violation of the right to life.”
It further said there were “reasonable grounds to believe” that the reported 68 attacks that killed 223 people constituted crimes against humanity of murder under customary international law.
Saul said that even if those targeted were members of organized criminal or “terrorist” groups, there was no evidence they had launched an armed attack against the United States or were acting as proxies for another country in a manner that would justify US military action.
Saul, the UN Special Rapporteur on counterterrorism and human rights, also argued that drug trafficking “is not equivalent to a military attack.”
Separately, the UN findings questioned the legal basis for the broader US campaign and called for investigations and accountability for commanders involved in the operations.
The report also concluded that the strikes had failed to prevent cocaine from reaching the United States through container shipping, where the report said shipments are not adequately checked.
Washington began striking vessels it accused of trafficking drugs from Venezuela toward the United States across the Eastern Pacific and Caribbean in September 2025.
The US military has repeatedly released videos of the attacks but has disclosed limited information about those killed and has not publicly provided evidence linking each targeted vessel to drug trafficking.
The campaign has also faced questions over whether the vessels were carrying drugs at all, while relatives of some of those killed have said the victims were fishermen rather than drug smugglers.
Two additional attacks in September raised the reported death toll to 234 in 70 strikes, according to independent tracking of the campaign.
In the first attacks on September 2, 2025, the US military allegedly used a “double tap” tactic in which a second strike was launched after an initial attack.
The initial strikes killed 11 people and prompted criticism in the US Congress, including calls for the Pentagon to release complete footage of the operations.
There were also allegations that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had ordered personnel to “kill them all,” although senior military commanders later testified before Congress that he had not issued such an order.
Speaking to Al Jazeera, Michael Vigil, former chief of international operations at the US Drug Enforcement Administration, said: “That is murder. No matter how you spell it out, it’s murder, … and it shocks the moral conscience.”
How does Washington justify the attacks?
The US military said the latest attack, which killed four people, targeted a vessel travelling “along established narco-trafficking routes” and said “confirmed intelligence revealed the vessel’s active involvement in narco-trafficking.”
Trump has repeatedly said the United States is engaged in an “armed conflict” with drug cartels and has defended the strikes as necessary to stop drugs from reaching the country.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio also told a Senate hearing in July that “every strike has a legal officer on the deck that has to make a determination about whether the call is legal or not”.
Human rights organizations and relatives of those killed have challenged the US government’s account and the legality of the attacks.
In January, the families of two Trinidadian men, Chad Joseph, 26, and Rishi Samaroo, 41, filed the first case against the US government over the boat attacks in a federal court in Massachusetts, arguing that the two men were fishermen.
Separately, in December, the family of Colombian national Alejandro Carranza Medina filed a human rights complaint with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, part of the Organization of American States.
The UN Human Rights Office has separately documented concerns over the killing of at least 168 people, almost all women and girls, in the bombing of a girls’ school in Minab, Iran, on February 28, 2026, and said the aggression raised serious concerns under international humanitarian and human rights law.
