Key facts
- A UN report concludes US airstrikes on alleged drug boats may be crimes against humanity.
- The strikes, carried out since September 2025, have killed 223 people.
- UN Special Rapporteur Ben Saul stated there are "reasonable grounds to believe" the attacks constituted crimes against humanity of murder.
- US Southern Command confirmed a recent strike killed four individuals it described as 'narco-terrorists'.
- Saul rejected claims that the strikes were acts of self-defense against armed groups.
A United Nations report has concluded that recent US airstrikes on vessels allegedly trafficking drugs in international waters breached international law and could constitute crimes against humanity. The report, by Special Rapporteur Ben Saul, stated that since September 2025, there had been at least 68 US attacks in the Caribbean and Pacific, outside US territorial waters, which killed 223 people.
Saul said that even if targets could be identified as members of designated terrorist groups, they had not staged an armed attack on the US which would trigger a right to self-defense under international law. He concluded that there are reasonable grounds to believe that the reported 68 attacks constituted crimes against humanity of murder under customary international law.
The report comes after the US military said it killed four people in a strike on a vessel in the Caribbean. US Southern Command stated in a release accompanying grainy video of the attack that 'Confirmed intelligence revealed the vessel's active involvement in narco-trafficking. The operation killed four narco-terrorists.'
Donald Trump had previously claimed the bombings had stopped 97% of all illegal drugs entering the US by sea, but according to available data, the attacks have had no impact on the volume of cocaine entering the US. Journalists and human rights groups have identified some victims as innocent or low-ranked participants in trafficking networks.