US Coast Guard suspends search for survivors of Pacific ship strike | Donald Trump News

Searches at an undisclosed location followed the latest US military strike against suspected drug trafficking boats.

The U.S. Coast Guard said it suspended its search for survivors days after the U.S. military said it struck two more boats in the eastern Pacific, part of its ongoing military campaign in the waters of and around Venezuela.

In a statement shared Friday on its website, the Coast Guard said the three-day search focused on the water “approximately 400 nautical miles.” [about 740km] southwest of the Mexico-Guatemala border” and continued for more than 65 hours, but no survivors were reported.

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US media previously reported that the search was taking place in an area where weather conditions included “nine-foot seas and 40-knot winds”.

The US military’s Southern Command said Tuesday it had struck three boats traveling in a convoy in the Eastern Pacific. Three people were killed on one of the boats, but passengers on the others jumped overboard, “taking their distance before subsequent fighting sank their respective ships.”

Two other people were killed in a subsequent strike on another boat, according to the army, which did not specify the location.

In both cases, the military said the boats were carrying drugs, without providing evidence.

The attacks bring the total number of known boat collisions to 33 and the number of people killed to at least 115 since the beginning of September, according to figures shared by the administration of US President Donald Trump.

The Coast Guard did not say Friday how many survivors were believed to be in the water. The military previously said it immediately notified the Coast Guard because it had no Navy ships in the immediate area.

The Coast Guard then sent a plan from California and notified vessels in the area.

Human rights observers and international law experts have said U.S. military strikes against suspected drug trafficking boats amount to extrajudicial killings, meaning they take place without any legal authority or due process.

The Trump administration said the targets were so-called “narcoterrorists” motivated not by profit but by ambition to destabilize the United States through the drug trade.

The military came under particular scrutiny after carrying out another strike on a boat in the Caribbean in early September, which appeared to have killed survivors of the first strike. The attack appears to violate military rules of engagement and laws of armed conflict.

There have been other documented cases of passengers surviving the strike, including one in late October which saw the Mexican navy suspend the search after four days. Two more survivors of a strike aboard a submersible in the Caribbean Sea that same month, were rescued and sent to their home countries of Ecuador and Colombia.

Ecuadorian authorities later released the man, saying they had no evidence he had committed a crime in the South American country.

US military attacks on ships have been largely concentrated in the waters surrounding Venezuela, which have been subject to an escalation of US sanctions, a significant build-up of US military forces on its borders, and what Trump described as an attack on a dock in Venezuelan territory.

The Trump administration also imposed a blockade on sanctioned Venezuelan oil tankers entering and leaving the South American country’s coast.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said the United States was seeking to overthrow his government and take over the country vast oil reserves.

However, on Thursday he struck a more conciliatory tone, saying he open to negotiate an agreement with the United States to combat drug trafficking.