Greater than 7 tons of cocaine was seized from boats within the Caribbean in current days, Colombia’s navy mentioned, because the U.S. continues to conduct deadly strikes on alleged drug-ferrying vessels within the area.
Authorities confiscated about 7.1 tons of cocaine throughout two operations within the Caribbean, the nation’s navy mentioned in a social media publish on Wednesday. One interdiction passed off 90 nautical miles from Barranquilla, a metropolis on Colombia’s northern coast, and the opposite one occurred about 70 miles south of that within the Gulf of Morrosquillo.
The cocaine was valued at greater than $340 million and 11 individuals — eight Colombians, two Venezuelans and one Jamaican — have been arrested “with out affecting their integrity or their lives,” the navy mentioned in a separate assertion.
Authorities launched pictures of the operations, exhibiting pictures of the boats concerned in addition to bricks of the alleged narcotics displayed on the bottom subsequent to officers and the detained suspects.
Colombia Navy
The seizures come as Colombian President Gustavo Petro is looking on the U.S. to finish strikes within the area towards obvious drug-carrying vessels. The U.S. introduced one other strike Thursday within the Pacific Ocean that the Pentagon mentioned killed 4 individuals.
Since September, the U.S. army has launched no less than 22 strikes on vessels within the Japanese Pacific and the Caribbean that the Trump administration claims, with out offering extra proof, are trafficking medication. At the very least 87 individuals have been killed within the strikes up to now.
The most recent strike comes as Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth faces scrutiny within the wake of a current Washington Submit report over a Sept. 2 boat strike within the Caribbean that killed 11 individuals. The report claimed the U.S. army struck the boat with two missiles, a revelation that the White Home confirmed. A supply acquainted with the matter advised CBS Information on Wednesday that the second strike got here as two individuals who survived the primary missile have been making an attempt to climb again onto the boat. The survivors have been allegedly making an attempt to salvage a number of the medication, in keeping with the supply. Some lawmakers have questioned whether or not the second strike constitutes a warfare crime.
In an unique dialog with CBS Information in October, Petro mentioned a few of these killed within the U.S. strikes have been harmless civilians, and he reiterated his accusation that the assaults violate worldwide regulation.
The White Home denies these accusations, and President Trump has defended the strikes as a respectable a part of his combat towards drug trafficking gangs.
Earlier this week, the household of a Colombian man who was killed in a U.S. army strike on a ship within the Caribbean lodged a grievance towards the U.S. with a human rights watchdog, arguing his demise was an extrajudicial killing.
