US Coast Guard Continues Search for Survivors After Boat Strikes in Eastern Pacific
The US Coast Guard is still searching for people in the eastern Pacific Ocean who jumped off alleged drug-smuggling boats when the US military attacked the vessels days earlier, diminishing the likelihood that anyone survived. The search efforts began on Tuesday afternoon after the military notified the Coast Guard that survivors were in the water about 400 miles southwest of the border between Mexico and Guatemala.
The Coast Guard dispatched a plane from Sacramento to search an area covering more than 1,000 miles, while issuing an urgent warning to ships nearby. The agency said it coordinated more than 65 hours of search efforts, working with other countries as well as civilian ships and boats in the area. The weather during that time has included 9-foot seas and 40-knot winds.
Background on the Boat Strikes
The US military said earlier this week that it attacked three boats traveling along known narco-trafficking routes and they “had transferred narcotics between the three vessels prior to the strikes.” The military did not provide evidence to back up the claim. US Southern Command, which oversees the region, said three people were killed when the first boat was struck, while people in the other two boats jumped overboard and distanced themselves from the vessels before they were attacked.
The strikes occurred in a part of the eastern Pacific where the Navy doesn’t have any ships operating. Southern Command said it immediately notified the US Coast Guard to activate search and rescue efforts for the people who jumped overboard before the other boats were hit. This is notable because the military drew heavy scrutiny after US forces killed the survivors of the first attack in early September with a follow-up strike to their disabled boat.
Context and Controversy
Some Democratic lawmakers and legal experts said the military committed a crime, while the Trump administration and some Republican lawmakers say the follow-up strike was legal. There have been other survivors of the boat strikes, including one for whom the Mexican Navy suspended a search in late October after four days. Two other survivors of a strike on a submersible vessel in the Caribbean Sea that same month were sent to their home countries — Ecuador and Colombia.
Under President Donald Trump’s direction, the US military has been attacking boats in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific since early September. As of Friday, the number of known boat strikes is 35 and the number of people killed is at least 115, according to numbers announced by the Trump administration. Trump has justified the boat strikes as a necessary escalation to stem the flow of drugs into the United States and asserted that the US is engaged in an “armed conflict” with drug cartels.
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