UN expert says US drug boat strikes may constitute crimes against humanity

• A UN expert said that US forces struck 68 vessels between September 2025 and August 2026, killing at least 223 people

• The report rejected Washington’s argument that alleged drug trafficking amounted to an armed attack warranting military self-defence

• It called for investigations, prosecutions and reparations while questioning the campaign’s effectiveness in curbing drug flows

A United Nations human rights expert has concluded that US attacks on vessels suspected of transporting drugs in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean violate international law and could amount to crimes against humanity.

In a report published on Monday, Ben Saul, the UN special rapporteur on human rights and counterterrorism, said the US had attacked 68 vessels in international waters between September 2025 and August 2026, killing at least 223 people.

Washington has defended the operations as acts of self-defence against “narco-terrorists”. US President Donald Trump has also informed Congress that the campaign forms part of an armed conflict with organisations designated as terrorist groups.

Saul’s report rejected that justification, concluding that the military strikes were unlawful, violated the right to life and could constitute crimes against humanity.

The findings were released two days after the US military announced that four people had been killed in another strike on a vessel in the Caribbean. Human rights organisations have condemned the wider campaign and described the deaths as extrajudicial killings.

Although the Pentagon has published footage of the attacks on social media, it has provided limited information about the people killed or the evidence allegedly connecting them to drug trafficking.

The report argued that suspected drug trafficking did not give the US a legal right to use force in self-defence because it did not meet the threshold of an armed attack under international law.

It added that self-defence against non-state actors would require evidence that they had been sent by, or were acting on behalf of, a state. However, the report said there appeared to be no factual basis for claims that groups designated as terrorist organisations by Washington, including Tren de Aragua, were operating as armed proxies of the Venezuelan government.

Saul also noted that less-lethal alternatives were available, including intercepting vessels at sea. The report said US secretary of state Marco Rubio had acknowledged that such operations were feasible.

It therefore concluded that the attacks also breached the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Under the covenant, lethal force may be used only as a last resort in response to an imminent threat, a standard the report said the US operations had failed to meet.

The report said the killings could satisfy the definition of murder as a crime against humanity because they were allegedly carried out systematically under an organised state policy and were sufficiently widespread given the number of victims.

It called on Washington to investigate the deaths, prosecute those responsible — including political and military leaders who ordered the attacks — and provide reparations to the victims’ families.

The report also questioned whether the military campaign had reduced the flow of illegal drugs into the US. It said cocaine seizures at the US border had remained broadly unchanged and noted that much of the region’s cocaine was transported in shipping containers, which were rarely inspected, rather than aboard the small vessels being targeted.

It added that the strikes had done little to address fentanyl and other opioids, which are not usually transported by sea from Venezuela despite being the leading cause of overdose deaths in the US.

By killing low-level suspects, the operations may also be weakening efforts to dismantle trafficking networks and prosecute cartel leaders, the report said.

The military campaign had cost an estimated $4.7 billion by mid-2026, according to the report. It argued that the money could instead have supported evidence-based law enforcement, public-health programmes and development initiatives.