US strikes on Ecuadorian fishing boats raise humanitarian concerns but Trump admin not wavering

US forces intercepted the Ecuadorian vessel Manta on 5 September before the vessel was destroyed. Photograph: US Marine Corps Forces, SouthView image in fullscreenUS forces intercepted the Ecuadorian vessel Manta on 5 September before the vessel was destroyed.

Photograph: US Marine Corps Forces, SouthEcuadorUS strikes on Ecuadorian fishing boats raise humanitarian concerns but Trump admin not waveringAttorney says fishers ‘losing their livelihoods’, but Marco Rubio maintains US still willing to ‘blow up ships if need be’.

Tiago Rogero, repórter da América do Sul Sáb 26 Set 2026 12:00 EDT Última modificação em Sáb 26 Set 2026 12:02 EDT Compartilhar Preferir o Guardian no Google Enquanto o secretário de Estado dos US, Marco Rubio, era decorado em Quito pelo presidente do Equador por “ajudar a promover a paz na região”, 10 pescadores equatorianos cuja embarcação havia sido explodida pelas forças dos US estavam à deriva no Pacífico oriental.

View image in fullscreenEcuador’s president, Daniel Noboa, right, presents the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, with Ecuador’s highest ranking National Order of Merit, the Grand Cross, at Carondelet palace in Quito, on 9 September.

Photograph: Dolores Ochoa/APOn 8 September, a day before Rubio arrived, a US patrol vessel intercepted the fishing boat Don Rufo in international waters near Ecuador.

View image in fullscreenA US patrol vessel intercepting the fishing boat Don Rufo in international waters near Ecuador. Photograph: US Southern Command/X“They brought two huge bombs aboard, took us to their ship, handcuffed and blindfolded us, and blew our boat to pieces,” said Calderón, who along with five other fishers, was handed over to local authorities.

But another 10 crew members were fishing farther out to sea in a smaller boat that was not equipped to make it back to shore. The Ecuadorian navy only rescued them on 10 September, when Rubio was already in Peru preparing to return to the US.

View image in fullscreenTen crew members from the five skiffs belonging to the vessel Don Rufo, after they were located and taken aboard the BAE Atahualpa, following air-maritime search and reconnaissance operations conducted by the Ecuadorian navy.

Fotografia: A Marinha do Equador e o Comando Sul dos EUA publicaram um vídeo editado de 14 segundos da operação e disseram “intelligence confirmed” que a embarcação estava sendo usada por um gangue como uma “floating refuelling station” para lanças de alta velocidade supostamente transportando drogas – o que os pescadores negam.

It was one of eight operations involving Ecuadorian boats in just more than two weeks – the latest on 16 September – to follow the same pattern. Unlike the nearly 70 US airstrikes in the Pacific and Caribbean that have killed 234 people since last year, crews were removed before the vessels were sunk.

Donald Trump has compared the drug trafficking operations to the campaign against the Islamic state. “Like ISIS, they should be killed, exiled or detained as enemy combatants without the possibility of release, which is what we’re doing,” Trump said on Tuesday.

Some analysts see the shift as an indication that the US’s military strategy against drug trafficking in Latin America has entered a new phase.

Ver imagem em tela cheia Fuzileiros e marinheiros da Força de Incursão Marítima, LCF-24, abordam a embarcação pesqueira equatoriana Conquista 2 no Pacífico em 2 de setembro.

Fotografia: US Marine Corps Forces, South “Noboa ofereceu o Equador como um ‘laboratório’ para a implementação desta nova fase,” disse Will Freeman, pesquisador de estudos latino-americanos no Council on Foreign Relations.

Although Ecuador does not produce cocaine like neighbouring Colombia and Peru, over the past decade it has become a major trafficking hub because of its access to the Pacific, including the area where the attacks on boats have been taking place.

Noboa has responded with a controversial “iron-fist” approach to the gangs, issuing repeated states of emergency and expanding the role of the armed forces.

View image in fullscreenRelatives of the four minors apprehended by soldiers and found dead near a military base dance during a rally to demand justice a year after their apprehension in Guayaquil, Ecuador on 8 December 2025.

Fotografia: Marcos Pin/AFP/Getty Images. Esta repressão, no entanto, fez pouco para reduzir a violência e, em vez disso, erodiu os direitos humanos. O exemplo mais notável de abuso de direitos humanos ocorreu no ano passado no caso dos “Guayaquil Four”, o desaparecimento forçado de quatro meninos afro-ecuatorianos entre 11 e 15 anos.

All four boys were found dead, there bodies charred and dismembered.

Despite pushback from voters, Noboa signed an agreement with the White House authorising joint operations and granting US military personnel involved in counter-narcotics operations immunity from criminal prosecution.

The operations have also extended to land, with US troops taking part in raids last Thursday.

View image in fullscreenPeople look at the remains of a burned-out fishing boat in the port of Manta, Ecuador, on 6 June 2026. The Ecuadorian national police said at least 20 fishing boats had been damaged.

Fotografia: Ariel Ochoa/EPA. Ver imagem em tela cheia. O exército equatoriano mostra o traficante de drogas Adolfo Macías, alias Fito, sendo guardado após sua recaptura em Manta, que fica na província de Manabi.

Photograph: Ecuadorean Army/AFP/Getty ImagesTrump has pressured Latin American presidents to join an anti-drug cartel coalition he created called Shield of the Americas.

With Peru and Colombia recently joining, the group now includes all but the few countries still governed by the left, such as Mexico and Brazil – where a far-right senator is a serious contender in October’s election.

So far, the coalition’s primary goal appears to have been increasing joint operations against alleged drug traffickers.

Adam Isacson, director for defence oversight at the Washington Office on Latin America, expects joint operations to expand across the region.

View image in fullscreenFishermen work along the shore as local fishermen are increasingly being pursued by Ecuadorean gangs to move drugs and for their skills navigating the Pacific waters along Ecuador’s coast, in Manta, on 4 June.

Fotografia: Karen Toro/Reuters. Isacson enfatizou que, embora mais pessoas estejam sendo entregues às autoridades locais em vez de serem mortas, os EUA ainda estão “fazendo as velhas coisas ruins”.

On 19 September, four people were killed in the Caribbean. As with the other airstrikes, the US has not disclosed their identities or any of the alleged evidence linking them to criminal activity.

During his trip to Ecuador, Rubio said the decision on what approach to take was “a strike-by-strike or operation-by-operation determination” that depended on the threat and location of the boat, but that the US would “still blow up ships if need be”.

Human rights organisations have described the airstrikes as extrajudicial killings, and a special rapporteur for the UN human rights council has concluded that there are “reasonable grounds to believe” that they constitute “crimes against humanity”.

Apesar das alegações de Trump, os dados disponíveis mostram que eles não tiveram impacto no volume de cocaína que entra no país.

Jornalistas e grupos de direitos humanos conseguiram identificar algumas das vítimas, que em muitos casos eram inocentes ou, quando suspeitos de envolvimento em atividade criminosa, eram pessoas pobres na base das redes de tráfico.

View image in fullscreenRelatives wait for 32 crew members to be released under precautionary measures in Manta, Ecuador, on 8 September 2026. The 24 crew members of the Maria Candelaria and eight from the Conquista II face judicial proceedings on suspicion of illicit association and fuel trafficking after their vessels were intercepted and destroyed by US forces in the Pacific Ocean.

Photograph: Ariel Ochoa/EPAIn Ecuador, the local NGO Permanent Committee for the Defence of Human Rights estimates that more than 220 fishers have been subjected to “violent boardings, arbitrary detentions, enforced disappearances, torture and the destruction of vessels” in this year’s US operations.

Nenhum dos pescadores permanece em custódia e, enquanto alguns ainda enfrentam processos, muitos já foram absolvidos por falta de provas.

Um porta-voz do Comando do Sul dos EUA disse que conduz operações “em conformidade com a lei dos EUA e internacional” e que deixar barcos “intactos poderia permitir seu reaproveitamento por redes criminosas”.

Although the US and Ecuador have celebrated the recent operations on social media, three cases from earlier this year remain unclaimed.

The first was on 20 January, when the fishing vessel Fiorella disappeared with eight crew members on board; days earlier, some of them had told relatives they were being monitored by drones and by a vessel on which they said they had seen a US flag.

Human rights organisations and journalists identified two more cases with similar patterns in late March, although the fishers survived. The Washington Post reported that the three cases were part of a covert CIA programme, and the agency declined to comment.

Um porta-voz do Comando do Sul dos EUA disse que não tinha conhecimento de, nem que suas forças estivessem “envolvidas nos incidentes descritos em relatórios envolvendo a Fiorella”.

View image in fullscreenMaria Mero and her mother, Maria Cueva, speak during an interview after Mero’s husband Gabriel Aladino Mero Delgado and brother Jefferson Ariel Mero Cueva disappeared from the boat Fiorella after a strike in June 2026.

Fotografia: Karen Toro/Reuters Ver imagem em tela cheia Maria Cueva segurando uma foto de seu filho Jefferson Ariel Mero Cueva. Fotografia: Karen Toro/Reuters Tanto o marido quanto o irmão de María Mero, 43, estavam a bordo do Fiorella: Gabriel Aladino Mero Delgado, 44, e Jefferson Ariel Mero Cueva, 25.

The families say they have spent months trying to get answers from the Ecuadorian government, so far without success.