The US military says it struck two boats it alleges were carrying drugs on Wednesday, killing five people on board.
US Southern Command did not specify where it had carried out the latest strikes, but US forces have been targeting vessels they suspect of smuggling narcotics through the Caribbean and eastern Pacific for the past three months.
Wednesday's strike came a day after the US targeted what it said were three narco-trafficking vessels travelling as a convoy, killing at least three people.
The Trump administration has characterized its operations as a non-international armed conflict with the alleged traffickers, yet legal experts express concerns that these actions could violate international conflict laws.
Overall, there have been over 30 strikes targeting vessels as part of the Trump administration's war on drugs, which has resulted in more than 110 fatalities since the first recorded attack on a boat in international waters on September 2.
This initial strike is facing intense scrutiny from lawmakers, particularly after it was revealed that US forces executed a second strike on the same vessel, killing survivors who were clinging to its hull.
US Southern Command noted that in a strike on December 30, there were survivors, though their numbers were not detailed. The Operational Command indicated that the remaining suspects had abandoned their boats before follow-up engagements sank them. The US Coast Guard has been notified to search for these individuals.
However, the US has yet to provide concrete evidence that the boats it targeted were involved in drug trafficking, insisting instead that their operations are based on intelligence confirming they were using known narco-trafficking routes.
