The US Coast Guard was searching for survivors of a US military strike against a convoy of suspected drug vessels in the Pacific Ocean, officials said on Wednesday.
In a statement, the US military’s Southern Command said the military had carried out a strike against three vessels.
“Three narco-terrorists aboard the first vessel were killed in the first engagement. The remaining narco-terrorists abandoned the other two vessels, jumping overboard and distancing themselves before follow-on engagements sank their respective vessels,” Southern Command posted.
Southern Command said later on Wednesday that it had carried out a separate strike on two vessels. It did not indicate where those strikes were carried out but said five people were killed as a result.
Donald Trump’s administration has carried out more than 30 strikes against suspected drug boats in the Caribbean and Pacific since September in a campaign that has killed at least 110 people.
A US official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said eight people had abandoned their vessels, as a result of the strikes on the convoy of vessels.
The Coast Guard told Reuters it had deployed a C-130 aircraft to look for survivors and was working with vessels in the area.
This is not the first time there have been survivors of a US strike under the Trump administration. In October, two survivors were repatriated to their home countries after surviving a US military strike.
Later that month, Mexican authorities launched a search and rescue effort after another US strike left a survivor. That individual was not found.
The decision to strike the vessels but not the survivors comes after it was revealed that during a September attack, the US military carried out a follow-on strike against a suspected drug vessel that had two survivors on it.
The lethal strikes on drug vessels are part of a broader campaign that the Trump administration says is aimed at cutting off the supply of illegal drugs.
Legal experts and Democratic lawmakers have questioned the legality of the strikes.
