The US military said 8 people were killed in strikes on 5 other suspected drug boats – but the survivors jumped into the sea.
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The U.S. military said on Wednesday it had struck five suspected drug-trafficking boats in two days, killing eight people and others jumping into the water where they may have survived.
The US Southern Command, which oversees South America, did not disclose where the attacks on Tuesday and Wednesday took place. Previous attacks have been in the Caribbean Sea and the eastern Pacific Ocean.
A video of Tuesday’s attack posted by the Southern Command on social media showed three boats moving close together, which is unusual, and the military said they were traveling on known drug-trafficking routes and had “transferred drugs between the three boats before the strikes.”
The military did not provide evidence to support that claim.
The military said three people died when the first boat was hit, while people in two other boats jumped into the water and distanced themselves from the ships before they were attacked. The Southern Command said it immediately notified the US Coast Guard to activate search and rescue efforts.
The Southern Command statement did not say whether those who jumped from the boats survived.
US President Donald Trump says the strike was aimed at a loading dock for drug boats. Tony Frangie Mawad, a journalist from Venezuela, shares the latest on the growing conflict.
The call to the Coast Guard is notable because the U.S. military is under heavy scrutiny after the U.S. military killed survivors of an attack in early September in a strike to track their disabled boat.
Some Democratic lawmakers and legal experts say the military committed a crime, while the Trump administration and other Republican lawmakers say the follow-up strike was legal.
At least 115 have been killed in strikes since September
American forces attacked two other boats on Wednesday, killing five people suspected of smuggling drugs through known routes, the Southern Command said in a separate statement.
It did not provide evidence of the alleged smuggling or reveal the waters in which the attacks took place. Videos posted with this statement on social media show the boat in the water and the explosion.
The latest attacks bring the number of known US military boats to 35 and the number of people killed to at least 115 since the beginning of September, according to numbers announced by the Trump administration.
President Donald Trump justified the attack as a necessary escalation to stem the flow of drugs into the United States and asserted that the US was facing an “armed conflict” with drug cartels.
Along with the strikes, the Trump administration has built up troops in the region as part of a growing campaign of pressure on Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, who has been charged with terrorism in the United States.
The United Nations Security Council has called an emergency meeting requested by Venezuela regarding US behavior in the Caribbean Sea. Several countries have called on the US to halt further escalation as it continues to move more military equipment into the region.
Meanwhile, the CIA conducted a pilot strike last week in an area believed to be used by Venezuelan drug cartels, according to two people familiar with the operation who asked not to be identified to discuss the matter.
It was the first known direct operation on Venezuelan soil since the US began strikes in September, a major escalation in the administration’s crackdown on Maduro’s government.
