2 boat survivors killed by US strike on Sept 2 didn’t have weapon or means to escape

The US military killed two survivors of the initial strike on a purportedly drug-carrying boat on September 2 even as they did not have any weapon to fight, radio to call for aid, or means to escape, according to a briefing to Congress members.

Killing unarmed and shipwrecked combatants is a war crime in the international law and the US military’s own war manual. But Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and senior Republican Congress members have supported the killing of such unarmed persons.

At the order of President Donald Trump, the US military began a campaign of blowing up boats in the international waters in the Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Sea on Sept. 2. In the first such attack, the US military killed 11 persons whom they dubbed as narco-terrorists without identifying them or offering any evidence.

More from World

US conducts fresh strike on alleged drug smuggling boat in the Caribbean, kills 4 White House defends second strike on Venezuelan boat as legality questioned

Last week, it emerged that the initial Sept. 2 strike killed only nine persons and left two survivors. Instead of recovering of two persons as per the US war manual and international law, the US military conducted a follow-up strike and killed them. These killings were only acknowledged after media reported them.

So far, the US military has conducted 22 such strikes in the international waters and killed 87 persons — the latest on Thursday that killed four persons.

Quick Reads

View All

Trump orders probe into food supply chain month after prices cost GOP key elections

‘Send Usha back’: JD Vance’s remark on migration unleashes wave of online outrage

The Trump administration has claimed those killed were drug traffickers but it neither identified nor produced any evidence of those boats carrying drugs. In any case, the US policy has long dictated such traffickers to be arrested and tried in a court instead of being killed in a military strike.

US military killed unarmed people who could not escape

The two men killed in the secondary US strike did not appear to have radio or any other communication device, did not have a weapon, and did not have means to escape, and yet the US military killed them, the CNN reported three sources part of the congressional briefing as saying.

These two men clung onto the capsized boat for 41 minutes before they were killed in a follow-up strikes, one of the sources said.

US officials debated for 41 minutes and then Admiral Frank ‘Mitch’ Bradley, the Commander of the US Special Operations Command (SOCOM) who oversaw those killings, ordered follow-up strikes to kill the two unarmed, shipwrecked survivors, the source said.

Separately, Bradley also acknowledged before Congress that the two survivors were not in any state to make a distress call — and he still ordered their killing.

Bradley justified his order on the grounds that it appeared that the part of the boat that was still afloat contained cocaine and the survivors could have hypothetically floated to safety or rescue or carried the drugs to the United States on that part of the boat, according to CNN.

Killing of unarmed men draws partisan reactions

Even as the killing was against the US government’s own war manual, Republicans justified it and stood behind Bradley and Hegseth.

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Tom Cotton, a Republican, told CNN he “saw two survivors trying to flip a boat, loaded with drugs bound for the United States, back over so they could stay in the fight”. He further said they “were clearly not incapacitated, they were not distressed”.

On the other hand, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Jim Himes, a Democrat, said the video “one of the most troubling things” he has seen as a lawmaker.

“Any American who sees the video that I saw will see the United States military attacking shipwrecked sailors — bad guys, bad guys, but attacking shipwrecked sailors. Yes, they were carrying drugs. They were not in the position to continue their mission in any way,” said Himes.

Himes further told CNN, “The end result was two individuals without any weaponry, without any tools of any kind, clinging to a wrecked boat … the decision was taken to kill them and that is in fact what happened. And that was pretty hard to watch.”