U.S. forces sink fourth Ecuadorian boat in a week over alleged drug links

A fourth Ecuadorian-flagged boat has been sunk by U.S. military forces in a week, in an operation that Washington said targeted a vessel supporting the violent narcoterrorist group Los Choneros.

The joint operation with Ecuador was broadcast on social media by people aboard the boat. U.S. Southern Command said the main vessel had been cleared and its crew had disembarked before American forces sank it along with attached support boats.

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Once the main vessel was cleared and the crew disembarked, U.S. forces sank it along with the attached support boats.

Ecuador’s navy said it received 26 crew members from the María Candelaria, who were returning to the southwestern port of Manta. One crew member described the confrontation in a video while focusing on the boat’s name: “The boat is coming, the boat is coming (...) The day before yesterday we left to go fishing and today they board us.”

Crew members from two other sunken vessels had arrived in Manta the previous day. Police held them until Saturday, when a judge released them without charges. The fishermen have denied involvement in illegal activities.

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The boat is coming, the boat is coming (...) The day before yesterday we left to go fishing and today they board us.

“They are criminalizing fishing, to the point that every fisherman who goes out to fish is a potential criminal under the interpretation being made by the U.S. navy,” César Delgado, a representative of Manta’s fishing sector, told AFP. Families and human rights groups have also questioned how the boats were identified. Authorities have reported no deaths in the operations.

The actions come as President Daniel Noboa wages a campaign against drug trafficking with Washington’s military support and joins Ecuador to the Americas Shield, a counternarcotics coalition of about 20 Latin American and Caribbean countries led by Donald Trump. Human Rights Watch said in July that U.S. forces had allegedly attacked three other Ecuadorian vessels between January and March, leaving at least eight people missing. The article also said Trump’s administration launched an air-bombing campaign a year ago against suspected drug-trafficking boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, causing more than 200 deaths.

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They are criminalizing fishing, to the point that every fisherman who goes out to fish is a potential criminal under the interpretation being made by the U.S. navy.