Ione WellsSouth America correspondent, in Colombia
BBCLizbeth Perez appears to be like fearful as she gazes out onto the postcard-perfect fishing bay of Taganga, on Colombia’s Caribbean coast, recalling the second she final spoke to her uncle in September.
“He was a form man, a great particular person, a good friend. father, uncle son. He was a cheerful particular person. He beloved his work and his fishing.”
Alejandro Carranza stated goodbye to his household early on the morning on 14 September, earlier than going out on his boat as regular, his cousin Audenis Manjarres informed state media. He left from La Guajira, a area in neighbouring Venezuela, he stated.
The subsequent day, US President Donald Trump introduced {that a} US strike in worldwide waters had focused a vessel which had departed Venezuela, and that three individuals he described as “terribly violent drug-trafficking cartels and narco-terrorists” have been killed.
Ms Perez has not seen her uncle since. His 5 kids are lacking their dad, she says, and the household are nonetheless ready anxiously for solutions, not figuring out if he was even on the boat hit within the strike.
“The reality is we do not realize it was him, we haven’t any proof that it was him, aside from what we noticed on the information.”
The US started putting alleged drug-trafficking boats within the Caribbean in September, earlier than increasing the operation to the Pacific. To this point 83 individuals have been killed in no less than 21 strikes, in line with US statements.
US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth says that the marketing campaign is geared toward eradicating “narco-terrorists from our hemisphere” and securing the US from “the medicine which might be killing our individuals”.
The Trump administration justifies them as a crucial self-defence measure geared toward saving American lives by stopping medicine from coming into the US.
However the strikes have attracted condemnation in international locations within the area and concern that they breach worldwide legislation.
Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro has criticised the strikes, saying Colombian residents have been on board the boat hit on 15 September, and later claiming Mr Carranza was amongst these killed.
Responding to his first assertion about Colombian residents being killed, the White Home stated it appeared ahead to President Petro “publicly retracting his baseless and reprehensible assertion”.
Trump has additionally accused Petro of encouraging the manufacturing of medicine and threated to chop off US help to Colombia.
Mr Carranza comes from an enormous household, dwelling with about 20 family in a small home off a dust observe within the fishing village of Gaira.
Earlier this month, Petro alleged that he needed to assist his daughter research at college, and so accepted a fee from a drug trafficker to move some medicine to an island, when his boat was struck.
“However whether or not it was fish or cocaine [he was transporting], he wasn’t topic to the dying penalty,” Petro stated. He accused the US of “homicide” and since stated he ordered Colombian public safety forces to droop intelligence sharing with the US till the strikes finish. His defence minister later stated the president had given “clear directions to take care of, as has been completed, a steady movement of knowledge with worldwide businesses to fight drug trafficking”.
Mr Carranza has a previous felony document over stealing weapons from the police 9 years in the past, however his household deny – and say they’re damage by – characterisations of him as a narco-trafficker.
“What the president of the US is doing is not proper. He has to show if they’re or aren’t [trafficking],” Lizbeth says.
She says whereas Trump might wish to sort out points affecting his “territory” that “doesn’t suggest he ought to resort to those strategies… of taking somebody’s life”.
A US lawyer working for a few of Mr Carranza’s household, Daniel Kovalik, who additionally works for President Petro, says Mr Carranza’s spouse and older daughter recognised his boat from the US-released footage of the strike.
He intends to sue the US authorities on the household’s behalf. Worldwide legislation says the army can’t kill civilians until they pose an imminent menace of violence, even when partaking in felony exercise.
“Even should you declare that the individuals you are killing are trafficking medicine, you do not have the proper to only have interaction in extrajudicial killings,” Mr Kovalik stated.
“They’re tiny boats… In case you actually consider they have been doing one thing improper, these individuals ought to be arrested, tried in a courtroom of legislation, convicted, and sentenced.”
“And, by the best way, none of them could be sentenced to the dying penalty – this isn’t a capital crime.”
The Trump administration has informed Congress that it believes the US is in a “non-international armed battle” with drug cartels within the area.
In doing so, it seems to be invoking war-time powers, corresponding to killing enemy combatants even when they pose no rapid violent menace, to justify the strikes.
President Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio have stated the US is “below menace” from “terrorist organisations” and stated medicine kill hundreds of Individuals.
The US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) says seizures of cocaine – the most important drug trafficked and produced in South America – rose by about 18% in 2024 in comparison with the earlier yr.
However the principle driver of drug deaths within the US is Fentanyl, which is produced and arrives within the US from Mexico.
Mr Kovalik doesn’t purchase the US’s self-defence argument, saying “these boats have by no means attacked the US”.
Again in Taganga, the strikes are inflicting apprehension for fishermen like 81-year-old Juan Assis Tejeda, whose pores and skin is tanned and leathered from 70 years fishing these waters below the Caribbean’s baking solar – similar to his grandfather and father earlier than him.
He usually fishes close to the border with Venezuela, simply alongside the coast.
He describes how he has generally seen drones flying over them whereas out fishing that “hover quietly, come again once more, and disappear”.
Regardless that he’s simply fishing, he’s now fearful due to the continued strikes.
“At any second they might see us and assume we’re doing the identical factor. As a result of generally we additionally go 60 miles or so out to sea, searching for tuna.”
He says some fishermen do get entangled in transporting medicine because of poverty. He says he was as soon as supplied cash himself, however he stated no.
He would like to stay to the little cash that he earns and stay “peacefully” than run the dangers related to transporting medicine, he says.
Most on this area don’t consider that that is nearly focusing on small, alleged drug-trafficking boats, however as a substitute in regards to the US additionally wanting to place army stress on Venezuela’s president Nicolás Maduro to step apart – or on his allies, for instance within the army, to oust him.
The US accuses Maduro of main a felony trafficking organisation which it calls the Cartel de los Soles, one thing Maduro strongly denies. The US state division intends to designate this group a international terrorist organisation on Monday.
This has added to rising hypothesis over whether or not the US will strike targets on Venezuelan soil itself.
Trump stated the US “could also be having some discussions with Maduro” and Maduro responded by saying he could be ready to speak “head to head”.
Because the US mulls its subsequent transfer, the sleepy fishing villages that dot the Caribbean coast wonder if diplomacy, or struggle, is on their horizon.
