1 Year After US Began Boat Bombing Campaign, Victims’ Families Demand Answers

A year ago today, the United States bombed a small boat in the Caribbean, killing nine people on board. Two survivors clung to the wreckage for 45 minutes, reportedly waving for help, before a second “double-tap” strike killed them, too. President Trump posted a video of the first attack on social media, announcing that 11 terrorists had been killed in a military operation that would be called “Operation Southern Spear.” The second video, showing the killing of the survivors, has never been released. The bombings have continued for a year, killing at least 227 people in nearly 70 separate strikes. The Pentagon often accuses the boats it targets of narcotrafficking.

In a new documentary, the investigative team at Al Jazeera’s Fault Lines traveled to St. Lucia and Colombia to speak with two families who believe their loved ones, both fishermen, were killed at sea by U.S. airstrikes. “They describe it as a war. They describe these people as enemy combatants that are attacking America,” says Josh Rushing, a senior correspondent for Fault Lines who worked on the documentary. In reality, “it’s unclear, really, if the U.S. government knows who they’re killing … They’ve never named anyone in any of the strikes.”

“We had the ‘war on drugs,’ the ‘war on terror.’ This is kind of the worst of both,” says Rushing.

TRANSCRIPT

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Anjali Kamat.

ANJALI KAMAT: A year ago today, September 2nd, 2025, the U.S. bombed a small boat in the Caribbean, killing nine people on board. Two survivors clung to the wreckage for 45 minutes, reportedly waving for help, before the U.S. struck again, killing them, as well. President Trump posted a grainy video of the first strike on social media, announcing to the world that 11 terrorists had been killed in action. The administration has refused to release video of the second strike on survivors, known as a “double-tap” strike, but it’s been seen by some members of Congress. The bombings have continued for a year, killing more than 220 people across roughly 70 strikes. Last month, the campaign, dubbed “Operation Southern Sphere,” was officially retired, but following a brief hiatus, the bombings have resumed.

U.N. experts issued a statement Tuesday demanding an end to the attack, saying, quote, “International law does not permit governments to simply murder alleged criminals at sea, just as the police cannot summarily execute people on the street in United States territory.”

AMY GOODMAN: In a new documentary, the investigative team at Al Jazeera’s Fault Lines traveled to St. Lucia and Colombia to meet two families who believe their loved ones, both fishermen, were killed at sea by the United States. In a moment, we’ll be joined by the film’s correspondent, Josh Rushing, but first, an excerpt from the film Killing at Sea.

TITUS JOSEPH: Normally when they’re going out, they’re going out 50, 60 miles. After they explode the boat —

JOSH RUSHING: Yeah.

TITUS JOSEPH: — the boat come all the way right here and come up.

JOSH RUSHING: Our team at Fault Lines spent months working with journalists in six countries to find families of people believed to have been killed in the strikes. Most of them did not want to talk publicly. They were afraid of cartels, their own governments or the Trump administration.

MERVIN JOSEPH: My brother, Ricky Joseph, was murdered by the government of the United States.

JOSH RUSHING: But in St. Lucia, Ricky Joseph’s family was willing to speak with us.

LUCILLIA CHARLES: I just get angry about it.

JOSH RUSHING: They told us he wasn’t alone that day. He’d gone to sea with another man, Joseph William, who was known as Nathy.

CAMERON TAYLIAM: Nathy was a brilliant fisherman. Brilliant fisherman, all right. This is one of my highest-paid captains.

JOSH RUSHING: Cameron Tayliam rents boats to local fishermen. Ricky and Nathy were aboard one that day.

CAMERON TAYLIAM: I tried calling Nathy, and I couldn’t get in touch with him. I tried calling multiple times.

JOSH RUSHING: Most of these attacks leave behind no evidence. But in this strike, Cameron recognized his boat in videos circulating on social media and was able to salvage some of the remains before they sank.

CAMERON TAYLIAM: When I brought the boat on shore, I realized it had my colors. It had the green on the outside. It had black to the bottom. It had red on the inside. I don’t want to believe it’s my boat, because I cannot believe that I just lose these brilliant guys.

JOSH RUSHING: Cameron says multiple fishermen told him they saw a drone circulating above the boat before the strike. Ricky’s brother Titus says fishermen told him that they saw an explosion in the direction of Ricky and Nathy’s boat.

Did you talk to other fishermen who saw it?

TITUS JOSEPH: Well, the guys themselves that told us that they saw a boat run past them. After a while, they saw the explosion. They see a big fire and a big black smoke.

JOSH RUSHING: What do you miss most about Ricky?

TITUS JOSEPH: I miss everything about him. Everything about him. As I tell you, he is my backbone. Everything is Ricky, Ricky. You understand? Everything is Ricky.

JOSH RUSHING: Ricky left behind his partner, Lucillia, and their four children.

LUCILLIA CHARLES: He was a good father. He will stay without clothes, he will stay without shoes, and his children has everything. He loves being on the sea. He’ll go out to fish. On the weekends, we’ll go with him to fish, me and him, the children. He likes to speed up the boat, make us laugh, make us enjoy ourselves. Life is harder now, because right now I’m their mother, I’m their father. I have to figure out where do I get money to buy books, bags, shoes, send them to school.

MERVIN JOSEPH: How will I ever be able to explain to the children: Where did their father go?

JOSH RUSHING: Nathy left behind two children and an elderly mother he cared for.

RAYSHAWN CHARLERLY: Well, I would say the person that’s most affected is my grandmother. Sometimes she call me and tell me that she cannot sleep. She keep on hearing him calling her.

AMY GOODMAN: An excerpt of the new Al Jazeera Fault Lines documentary, Killing at Sea, telling the story of two fishermen in St. Lucia who are believed to have been killed by the United States.

We’re joined now in studio by senior correspondent Josh Rushing. He’s been a journalist for more than 20 years, former Marine, spokesperson for CENTCOM during the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

Welcome to Democracy Now! It’s great to have you with us. This is such a painful documentary, as you visit the families of people who are believed to have been killed by the United States, not charged, not tried and convicted, but blown up at sea, on this first anniversary of the beginning of what the U.S. has called Operation Southern Spear.

JOSH RUSHING: That’s right. Thanks for having me, Amy and Anjali.

There’s a real disconnect between the way the U.S. describes what is happening. They describe it as a war. They describe these people as enemy combatants that are attacking America. They’re posting. The only reason we even know that these killings are happening is because they post the videos. So, during Operation Southern Spear, which ended in August, we know that there’s been more than 60 boat strikes, and they killed 221 people, at least. Those are the ones they’ve told us about. Are there more? We don’t know. And there’s no way to know, because these happen over the horizon with no witnesses, no evidence.

And for the families, it’s very, very hard for them to confirm whether their loved one has actually been killed in a strike or not. All they know is that their dad, their husband, fishermen, went to sea and didn’t come back.

AMY GOODMAN: And the U.S. announces a strike. That’s all we know.

JOSH RUSHING: Around the same day, yeah. So, they’re trying to connect the dots, but it’s really difficult to actually confirm it. So, we had trouble. We wanted to know: OK, who are these enemy combatants of the U.S.? Let’s go look at the other side of this war, right? And what we went down and found was something really very, very different.

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So, for example, one of the families you saw there in St. Lucia, the family of Ricky Joseph, his partner Lucillia was left with four children. He made — she says that he made about $2,000 a year as a fisherman. And now that’s gone. And she’s having to support the four kids. So, when we found them, there was no electricity. There wasn’t much food. They’re really struggling to get by.

And that’s who the U.S. is taking out in these strikes. That’s who we found on the other side. And they have no idea that they’re enemy combatants. They have no idea that this is a — that they’re supposedly in a war against the U.S. And just to be really, really clear, they’re in boats that are designed to go 50 or 100 miles. Ricky Joseph’s boat was 1,500 miles away from the U.S. when they blew it up. And so, what we found by actually going down is a very different picture than what the U.S. government seems to be describing here.

ANJALI KAMAT: Josh Rushing, you also had a chance while in St. Lucia to question the Prime Minister Philip Pierre about the missing men. Here’s a clip.

JOSH RUSHING: We’ve been investigating the disappearances of two St. Lucians: Ricky Joseph and Nathy Williams. All evidence points toward their deaths being caused by a U.S. boat strike on February 13, 2026. So, my question for you, Prime Minister Pierre: What should justice look like in this situation?

PRIME MINISTER PHILIP PIERRE: We’ve requested information from the United States, and we have not got any information as to what happened. We still consider it a missing persons case, and our own law enforcement are trying their best to see if they can decide what happened. But as far as we’re concerned, the United States have given us no information on that issue.

ANJALI KAMAT: Josh, what answers did you get from the U.S. government when you took these questions to them?

JOSH RUSHING: So, we did ask the U.S. government, through U.S. Southern Command, the State Department, the White House, very specific and detailed questions. Were these people involved in the strike? A lot of questions about the legality of the strikes. When they provided answers, they didn’t answer any of our specific questions. They wouldn’t confirm whether the people we found were involved in strikes. It’s unclear, really, if the U.S. government knows who they’re killing, to be honest with you. They’ve never named anyone in any of the strikes.

AMY GOODMAN: I mean, when you say you went to Southern Command, the State Department, you’re not just anyone. Yes, you’re a journalist with Al Jazeera for many years, but you were the spokesperson for CENTCOM.

JOSH RUSHING: Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: You were the spokesperson for General Tommy Franks. So, you’re a former Marine. Your assessment of what the U.S. government is doing? You know exactly what it means with the kind of answers or nonanswers they give you.

JOSH RUSHING: In the 21 years that have passed since I left the Marines and I’ve been at Al Jazeera, things have changed a lot in the military. And what I think at one point I saw as being a spokesperson for the military was my job to hold them open to the public, because they should be transparent — they are the public’s military — has become more of a spin and public relations job rather than public affairs. And that certainly was happening while I was in, as well. It’s one of the reasons I resigned over the Iraq War and the way that I was used to sell it in ways that were — turned out to be dishonest.

AMY GOODMAN: Do you see the echoes of that right here?

JOSH RUSHING: Oh, this is — Amanda Klasing, the head of Amnesty International in America, told me that this boat strike program is basically the result of — we had the “war on drugs,” the “war on terror.” This is kind of the worst of both and something entirely new. But yeah, I think you can connect the dots, going all the way from 9/11 to these boat strikes.

ANJALI KAMAT: And, Josh, I want to go to another clip from your documentary, Killing at Sea. You visited the family and friends of a fisherman, Alejandro Carranza, and this is in Colombia, in Santa Marta.

JOSH RUSHING: For the families of those believed to have been killed, there are few ways to pursue accountability. So far, just two cases challenging the operation have been filed in court. One goes back to the second strike of the campaign.

Can you tell me the story about the last time you or your children heard from Alejandro?

KATERINE HERNANDEZ: [translated] He contacted us through a video call saying that he was going fishing.

ZAIRA CARRANZA: [translated] He told me to take good care of yourself. Usually when he left, it would take three days, four days, and then he would call again. And he never called again.

JOSH RUSHING: On September 15, 2025, 42-year-old Alejandro Carranza was off the coast of La Guajira, Colombia, when his family said they lost communication with him.

LEONARDO VEGA: [translated] People began to whisper that Alejandro might have already died in one of the bombings.

JOSH RUSHING: His childhood friend was one of the first people to connect his disappearance with a video of a strike posted by President Trump on social media.

LEONARDO VEGA: [translated] In the video, you see that there are raised motors. That is a sign that they are drifting and presenting an emergency.

JOSH RUSHING: What made you think it was Alejandro on that boat?

LEONARDO VEGA: [translated] We had no doubt. Time has passed, and we never heard from Alejandro again. The family came out to recognize it, and we, as fishermen, realized that it was a Colombian boat. That was all the evidence needed to say what a terrible thing happened to my friend.

KATERINE HERNANDEZ: [translated] I can only imagine what it must have felt like. The video where they fire that missile and don’t give any time, and it just leaves everything completely destroyed.

ANJALI KAMAT: Josh, this family that you featured in the documentary, they filed a petition Tuesday? They filed a complaint with the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights?

JOSH RUSHING: They did, saying Alejandro’s rights to life were taken away through this. And it’s one of the few kind of legal actions we’ve seen come out of this. There’s so many questions that this raises. Like, for example, in the same month, in December, where they killed multiple people at sea, President Trump pardoned the former president of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernández, who was convicted by a U.S. jury of trafficking nearly 500 — I think, 500 tons of cocaine into the U.S. and was famous for saying, “We’re going to shove these drugs up the noses of the gringos.” So, President Trump decides he walks free, while blowing up — in that same month, blowing up these boats at sea.

AMY GOODMAN: And as they blow up these boats at sea, cocaine trafficking into the United States has increased.

JOSH RUSHING: There’s no evidence that it’s gone down, or that fentanyl has gone down. And they’ve really put it on fentanyl, saying that that’s what this is about. But fentanyl doesn’t come from down there. I asked so many people in St. Lucia about fentanyl, and they said, “What’s that?” They don’t even know.

AMY GOODMAN: Josh Rushing, the film has dropped today. It’s on YouTube?

JOSH RUSHING: Yes, it can be found now at 8 a.m. this morning, East Coast time.

AMY GOODMAN: Killing at Sea is the name of the Fault Lines Al Jazeera English documentary. The correspondent, Josh Rushing. We’ll link to that documentary also at democracynow.org.

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