 "US President Donald Trump waves from the stairs of Air Force One as he boards upon his arrival at Joint Base Andrews, as he travels to Israel. AP")
US President Donald Trump has confirmed that the United States carried out another strike on a vessel in the Caribbean Sea this week, escalating the tensions in the Latin American region. During a meeting with his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskyy , in the Oval Office on Friday, Trump made his first statement about the attack.
The remarks from the American president came when he was confronted by reporters at the White House about the sole survivor of the incident. “We attacked a submarine, and that was a drug-carrying submarine built specifically for the transportation of massive amounts of drugs,” Trump said, without offering evidence about what kind of vessel it was or what it was transporting. “This was not an innocent group of people. I don’t know too many people who have submarines.”
On Thursday, Reuters broke the story of a new attack in the region. It was the first time survivors had been reported since the US began its bombing campaign in the Caribbean on September 2. A Department of Defence official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told news outlets in the US that the two survivors have been taken into custody after the attack.
The fate of the survivors remains unclear
The officials did not say whether these two survivors will be prosecuted or what their current condition is. According to reports, two other people died in the blast. In the Friday meeting, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio declined to offer further details when asked about the survivors.
However, he did defend US operations in the region, stating that they aim to intercept illegal drugs. “We’re undertaking these operations against narco-terrorists,” Rubio said. “That’s what these are. These are terrorists. Let’s be clear.”
As of now, the Trump administration has confirmed five other attacks with at least 28 people killed in total. The White House has been arguing that the strikes are an effort to stem drug trafficking from Venezuela. However, the Trump administration has yet to offer any evidence to support its accusations.
Amid the chaos, Colombian President Gustavo Petro has said he believes some of his citizens were among the deceased. A family in Trinidad and Tobago, which lies 11 kilometres (six miles) from the Venezuelan coast, has also said it believes a relative was killed in the recent string of attacks. Meanwhile, Venezuela has appealed to the UN Security Council for the strikes to be declared illegal.