US confirms 126 deaths linked to strikes on alleged drug boats

The death toll linked to the Trump administration's strikes on suspected drug trafficking vessels has reached 126 people, including those presumed lost at sea, the U.S. military confirmed on Monday.

This figure includes 116 people killed outright in at least 36 attacks carried out since early September in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean, according to U.S. Southern Command. Ten others are believed dead, as searchers failed to locate them after a strike.

Eight of these presumed fatalities were on December 30, when eight people jumped from boats accused of drug trafficking during an American forces attack. This number had not been released previously, though the military said at the time of those strikes that the U.S. Coast Guard had searched for survivors. The remaining two presumed dead were aboard boats targeted on October 27 and last Friday.

Trump has described the U.S. as being in "armed conflict" with cartels in Latin America, justifying the attacks as a necessary escalation to stem drug flows. However, his administration has offered little evidence to support its claims of killing "narcoterrorists".

Critics have questioned the overall legality of the strikes as well as their effectiveness, in part because the fentanyl behind many fatal overdoses is typically trafficked to the U.S. overland from Mexico, where it is produced with chemicals imported from China and India.

The campaign also drew intense criticism following the revelation that the military killed survivors of the very first boat attack with a follow-up strike. The Trump administration and many Republican lawmakers said it was legal and necessary, while Democratic lawmakers and legal experts said the killings were murder, if not a war crime.

The boat strikes began amid one of the largest buildups of U.S. military might in Latin America in generations, in a pressure campaign that culminated with the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. He was brought to the U.S. to face drug trafficking charges after the Jan. 3 raid by American forces.

There has been one boat strike since then, although the U.S. has been more focused on seizing oil tankers connected with Venezuela as part of the Trump administration’s broader efforts to take control of the South American country’s oil.

Republicans in Congress have defeated Democratic-led efforts to rein in Trump’s ability to conduct further attacks in Venezuela.