US strikes on small boats in the Caribbean and Pacific have killed more than 220 people over the past year, with no drop in drug supply and mounting evidence the dead were poor fishermen rather than traffickers.

• More than 60 strikes have been carried out since September 2025, and none of the dead have been publicly named.
• In the first strike, two survivors clinging to wreckage were killed by the same aircraft 45 minutes later — a war crime under long-standing rules on shipwrecked sailors.
• Families in Colombia and St. Lucia say their relatives had nothing to do with drugs; one man earned about $2,000 a year fishing, and his partner was left with no electricity and little food.
• Under the classified legal criteria, drugs do not even have to be on the boat for it to be destroyed, and survivors who are picked up get sent home with no charges — which undercuts the claim this is a war.
• In one case a rescue plane was dispatched from Utah and circled for hours while men waited in open water; none survived.

Outlook: The campaign is expanding into a much larger operation covering land, sea, and air strikes across Latin America, with little sign of congressional pushback.