Search in undisclosed location followed the latest US military strike on alleged drug smuggling boats.

Published On 3 Jan 2026

The United States Coast Guard has said it has suspended its search for survivors days after the US military said it struck two more boats in the eastern Pacific amid its ongoing military campaign in waters in and around Venezuela.

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

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US media outlets had earlier 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 on Tuesday said that it struck three boats travelling in a convoy in the eastern Pacific. It said three people were killed on one of the boats, but the passengers of the others jumped overboard, “distancing themselves before follow-on engagements sank their respective vessels”.

Another two people were killed in a subsequent strike on another boat, according to the military, which did not provide the location.

In both instances, the military said the boats were smuggling drugs, without providing evidence.

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

The Coast Guard did not say on Friday how many survivors were believed to be in the water. The military had previously said it immediately notified the Coast Guard because it did not have any Navy ships in the immediate area.

The Coast Guard then dispatched a plan from California and notified ships in the area.

Human rights observers and international law experts said US military strikes on alleged drug smuggling boats amount to extrajudicial killings, meaning they are taking place without any legal authority or due process.

The Trump administration has said the targets are so-called “narcoterrorists” driven not by profit but ambitions to destabilise the US through the drug trade.

The military came under particular scrutiny after it conducted a follow-on strike on a boat in the Caribbean in early September, appearing to kill survivors of the first strike. The attack appeared to violate the military’s own rules of engagement and laws of armed conflict.

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

Authorities in Ecuador later released the man, saying they had no evidence he committed a crime in the South American nation.

The US military’s attacks on vessels have been largely concentrated in waters surrounding Venezuela, which has been the subject of escalating US sanctions, a significant buildup of US military forces on its borders, and what Trump has described as an attack on a dock in Venezuelan territory.

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

Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro has said the US is seeking to topple his government and seize the country’s vast oil reserves.

However, on Thursday, he struck a more conciliatory tone, saying he is open to negotiating a deal with the US to combat drug trafficking.