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“The International Criminal Court is prosecuting the former Philippines president [Rodrigo] Duterte for the exact same thing.”
The murder spree being conducted by the US government under the direction of President Donald Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth climbed to an estimated 185 people on Sunday after the Pentagon announced another bombing of a boat it claims was trafficking illegal narcotics.
“On April 26, at the direction of SOUTHCOM commander Gen. Francis L. Donovan, Joint Task Force Southern Spear conducted a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel operated by Designated Terrorist Organizations,” the US military stated in a social media post. “Intelligence confirmed the vessel was transiting along known narco-trafficking routes in the Eastern Pacific and was engaged in narco-trafficking operations. Three male narco-terrorists were killed during this action. No US military forces were harmed.”
While no specific evidence was provided publicly to back up the claims made by SOUTHCOM about Sunday’s strike, human rights experts and legal scholars have made clear for months that such lethal operations at sea—whether or not those targeted are in fact trafficking drugs—have no justification under international maritime law and that the extrajudicial killings should be seen for what they are: cold-blooded murder.
Footage released by SOUTHCOM showed the moment the vessel was attacked, and those aboard were killed:
On April 26, at the direction of #SOUTHCOM commander Gen. Francis L. Donovan, Joint Task Force Southern Spear conducted a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel operated by Designated Terrorist Organizations. Intelligence confirmed the vessel was transiting along known… pic.twitter.com/br2znnUM1x
— U.S. Southern Command (@Southcom) April 27, 2026
In a separate attack on April 24, also carried out by SOUTHCOM, two other individuals were murdered when their boat, filmed stationary in the ocean, was bombed by US forces:
On April 24, at the direction of #SOUTHCOM commander Gen. Francis L. Donovan, Joint Task Force Southern Spear conducted a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel operated by Designated Terrorist Organizations. Intelligence confirmed the vessel was transiting along known… pic.twitter.com/FRHwqXsHm2
— U.S. Southern Command (@Southcom) April 25, 2026
Nick Turse, an investigative journalist with The Intercept, which has been tracking the attacks, said the latest pair of attacks means five “more people have been murdered since Friday,” bringing the total—since the attacks began last year—up to nearly 190 people.
“The Trump administration keeps summarily executing, rather than arresting, drug suspects,” said Kenneth Roth, former executive director of Human Rights Watch and now a visiting professor at Princeton University, on Sunday. “These are murders. The International Criminal Court is prosecuting the former Philippines president [Rodrigo] Duterte for the exact same thing.”
Last week, the ICC’s pre-trial chamber unanimously confirmed all the charges levied against Duterte, paving the way for his trial to begin. Duterte, who served as mayor of the city of Davao and later as the nation’s president, is accused of crimes against humanity over his violent crackdown on drugs that included extrajudicial killings and other brutal tactics by police and security forces.
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