Ecuadorian fishermen sue US government over drone strike that sank their boat

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Fishermen return to the port of San Mateo, Ecuador, after a day at sea, transporting their catch to shore in June 2026. Photograph: Los Angeles Times/Getty Images theguardian.com

More than a dozen Ecuadorian fishermen are suing the US government over a military drone attack that sank their boat in the Pacific, the first survivors of Washington's Caribbean and Pacific anti-narcotics campaign to take the issue to a US court. The lawsuit, filed in the western district of Pennsylvania, describes what happened to La Negra Francesca Duarte II on 17 March: two armed drones exploded on the vessel roughly 385 nautical miles from the port of Manta, setting it ablaze as the crew returned from a two-week fishing trip. Two men were burned on their legs, arms and back. Survivors say they rowed toward a US military vessel while pursued by a surveillance drone, and were then restrained with zip ties and hooded. According to the filing, the attack came soon after Ecuadorian authorities had inspected the boat and found no drugs and no cartel ties. The 16 plaintiffs say they were then flown to a detention center in El Salvador and held for about a month — a country they had no connection to and no means to contest. The campaign behind the strike, Operation Southern Spear, was announced in November 2025 as a precision war on "narco-terrorists." The Washington Office on Latin America counts as many as 250 people killed in subsequent attacks and describes them as extrajudicial executions, noting the government has provided no proof the victims were engaged in trafficking. Pittsburgh attorney Dan Kovalik, filing the suit, says the two badly injured fishermen are still dealing with their wounds and that the loss of the vessel has left none of the plaintiffs able to work or support their families. Beyond compensation for the attack and the men's "kidnapping and torture," the fishermen want the boat strikes to stop. The case will test a doctrine that has so far operated without judicial review: the administration names its targets in press releases, and the dead are counted by an NGO. That the victims of American weapons must sue Washington in Washington to get a hearing is itself the clearest measure of how the campaign is judged outside the United States.