At Least 238 Killed In U.S. Boat Strikes In The Caribbean
Originally published by News Americas Now Read the original
By News Americas Now Staff Writer
News Americas Now, NY, NY, Mon. Oct. 12, 2026: The U.S. boat strikes on alleged drug-trafficking vessels in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific has killed at least 238 people since it began in September 2025, according to data compiled by USNI News – with mounting evidence that Caribbean nationals are among those killed, not just the Venezuelan and Colombian crews the Trump administration has emphasized publicly.
The latest strike, on October 4 in the Caribbean, killed four people aboard a “go-fast vessel” that U.S. Southern Command said was operating along narco-trafficking routes, under the banner of Joint Task Force Southern Spear. It was the first Caribbean strike in 15 days; most of 2026’s strikes have shifted to the Eastern Pacific.
SINCE SEPTEMBER 2025
The campaign’s first strike, on September 1, 2025, targeted a vessel from San Juan de Unare, Venezuela, killing 11 people in the Caribbean. As of late March 2026, the Caribbean Sea had seen at least 15 vessels struck, with the Eastern Pacific accounting for 31 – though the Pentagon has not published a running death toll broken out by region, only the combined national figure now standing at 238.
What has largely gone unreported in U.S. coverage: Caribbean nationals are confirmed among the dead. A Guardian investigation that identified 16 of the campaign’s victims by name found two Trinidad and Tobago nationals – Chad Joseph and Rishi Samaroo – and one Saint Lucian, Ricky Joseph, among those killed in strikes since the campaign began. Two unidentified bodies believed linked to the very first strike washed ashore in Trinidad and Tobago in September 2025; families of two other missing men from Trinidad and Tobago came forward after an October 14, 2025 strike near the Venezuelan coast that killed six. Dozens of the campaign’s victims across both regions remain unidentified, and several families — including that of Colombian victim Alejandro Carranza – have publicly disputed that their relatives were trafficking drugs at all.
The strikes have drawn sharp rebuke internationally even as they’ve divided opinion within the Caribbean itself. Trinidad and Tobago Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar has publicly praised the U.S. strikes, saying the country wants drug traffickers killed. That stance sits uneasily against the fact that at least three Trinidadian and St. Lucian nationals — Chad Joseph, Rishi Samaroo, and Ricky Joseph — are now confirmed among the casualties of the very campaign she’s endorsed.
Internationally, the legal basis for the strikes remains fiercely contested. President Trump notified Congress in October 2025 that the U.S. considers itself in a “non-international armed conflict” with drug-trafficking crews designated as “unlawful combatants,” a framing that would allow lethal force without the due process a law-enforcement interdiction would require. UN human rights experts called the killings “extrajudicial executions” in October 2025, and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk formally demanded the U.S. halt the strikes and open an investigation. Colombia and Venezuela have filed a complaint with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, which held hearings on the matter in March 2026.
A Washington Post report alleged that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth verbally ordered that no survivors be left after the September 2 strike, in which two survivors of an initial strike were reportedly killed in a follow-up strike minutes later. The Pentagon has called that reporting “completely false,” and a senior admiral told lawmakers there was no “kill them all” order – though several officials briefed on the matter said survivors appeared to be signaling for help or surrender before the second strike.
The Republican-controlled Senate has twice rejected resolutions that would have required congressional approval before further strikes, most recently on November 6, 2025 – hours before a strike killed three more people in the Caribbean.
The Trump administration has defended the campaign as a life-saving measure against fatal overdoses in the United States. But CDC data cited by USNI News show no measurable decline in U.S. overdose deaths since the strikes began over a year ago.
