Who sank 2 Ecuadorean fishing boats? Survivors level to drones as Washington denies involvement

MEXICO CITY — In March, a pair of Ecuadorean fishing boats within the Pacific burst into flames, forcing each crews to desert ship. Months later, the incidents — which occurred effectively after the Trump administration launched its bombing marketing campaign concentrating on alleged drug boats — have left extra questions than solutions.

All 36 crewmen survived, however they’ve recounted an astonishing story: The fishermen say drones bombarded their boats and that they have been then taken at gunpoint as prisoners aboard U.S. navy vessels. After some hours, the fishermen say, they have been turned over to Salvadoran patrol boats, which took the crews to El Salvador.

U.S. authorities deny any half within the puzzling sequence of occasions, which concerned a pair of 35-ton fishing craft — not the glossy speedboats usually pictured in Department of Defense movies of maritime strikes.

Last week, two Democratic congressmen wrote to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and different high-ranking Trump administration officers demanding “a full accounting” in regards to the two boats and a 3rd Ecuadorean fishing vessel that went down in January.

“These incidents have resulted in eight persons still missing or unaccounted for, credible survivor accounts of arbitrary or unlawful detention, abuse, and extrajudicial use of force by U.S. personnel,” wrote Reps. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) and Bill Keating (D-Mass.).

In an interview, Keating mentioned: “Somebody did this, and we’re in the region, we have eyes everywhere.”

That the Ecuadorean fishing boats sank is unchallenged. But the query persists: What, precisely, despatched them to the underside of the ocean?

It had been a productive two weeks for La Negra Francisca Duarte II, which was returning to port with 3 tons of treasured catch — largely tuna, swordfish, marlin and shark.

Shortly after midday on March 17, about 170 miles off the coast of Ecuador’s Galapagos Islands, crew members mentioned they sighted a blue boat within the distance. Probably one other fishing vessel, they surmised.

About an hour later, they recalled in interviews, the fishermen noticed a extra sinister sight overhead: a pair of drones.

What adopted, the fishermen mentioned, was an assault that despatched flames and particles flying throughout the deck, injuring a number of crew members.

“We were all dazed, our ears were ringing,” mentioned José Hernán Flores, 51, captain of the Negra Francisca. “There wasn’t even time to put on our life jackets. … Some jumped into the sea.”

One drone crashed on the boat, the captain mentioned. He needed to seize the downed plane, however feared it could explode.

His nephew, Jordy Flores, 21, a crew member, suffered a deep wound that uncovered bone on his proper foot, the captain mentioned. “He didn’t stop screaming in pain,” he mentioned.

The “blue boat,” survivors mentioned, finally took on board all 16 crew members, who had managed to clamber right into a pair of auxiliary skiffs connected to the Negra Francisca.

The officers on the blue vessel spoke English and shouted orders by way of interpreters. “They pointed machine guns at us and ordered us to keep our hands up,” recalled Flores, the captain.

The officers cuffed the survivors with plastic restraints, positioned hoods on their heads and demanded that nobody converse, in response to the fishermen.

They spent hours sprawled on the deck, broiling below the daytime solar, then chilled at night time, the fishermen mentioned.

“I prayed to God: ‘Please, don’t let these gringos execute us,’” mentioned Gille Jimmy Toala García, 55, the cook dinner on the Negra Francisca.

A fisherman on one other boat recorded cellphone pictures of the Negra Francisca ablaze and posted the video, spurring alarm in regards to the destiny of the boat and its crew.

The subsequent day, the fishermen mentioned, they have been turned over to a Salvadoran patrol boat and brought on an eight-day journey to El Salvador.

Those have been days of profound anguish for distraught households again in Ecuador, who had no concept their family members have been protected — and steaming towards Central America.

On March 19, a whole lot gathered exterior the harbor grasp’s workplace in Manta, the port metropolis the place the Negra Francisca was primarily based, demanding info and an all-hands seek for the 16 lacking fishermen.

Once in El Salvador, the crewmen of the Negra Francisca say, they have been questioned and denied any involvement with drug trafficking. They finally made contact with family members who raised funds for flights dwelling, and later threw welcome events for the back-to-life mariners.

In a uncommon public acknowledgment of the incident, the Salvadoran navy mentioned on March 23 on X that sailors have been conducting a “humanitarian operation” to switch 16 Ecuadorean shipwreck survivors to El Salvador, together with two who have been injured.

The navy didn’t say how the 16 have been encountered, and the Salvadoran navy didn’t reply to requests for elaboration.

Nine days after the Negra Francisca sank, one other Ecuadorean fishing boat was trolling the fertile fishing grounds off the Galapagos. The fishermen aboard the Don Maca say they too noticed a “blue boat” — this time flying a U.S. flag.

Drones quickly appeared within the sky and, with out warning, opened hearth on the Don Maca, in response to the crew.

They additionally managed to clamber aboard auxiliary craft, and the blue boat took all 20 fishermen on board, crew members mentioned.

Their accounts echo these of the Negra Francisca crew: cuffing and hooding by armed English-speakers earlier than being turned over to a Salvadoran patrol craft, which took them to El Salvador.

As was the case with Negra Francisca, relations and others — unable to benefit from the holidays of Holy Week — staged tense protests exterior the harbor grasp’s headquarters in Manta, demanding motion to seek out one more boat that had gone lacking.

Once in El Salvador, the crewmen of the Don Maca say they have been interrogated, denied they have been traffickers, and, finally, have been allowed to contact their households and go away for dwelling.

One Don Maca survivor, Sebastian Palacios Vera, 54, recalled that the captain of the Salvadoran vessel associated that “the Americans” informed him that the crew was composed of “shipwreck” survivors.

“That was a lie,” he mentioned. “We were never shipwrecked. We were attacked.”

The Trump administration’s marketing campaign to explode alleged drug-smuggling boats —whereas providing scant proof that the vessels have been ferrying narcotics — has killed not less than 190 “narco-terrorists” to date. Critics denounce the operation as extrajudicial killings.

The Pentagon listing of publicly acknowledged boat strikes doesn’t carefully correlate with the dates or particulars of the sinkings of the Ecuadorean boats.

The Southern Command, which oversees U.S. navy operations within the area, doesn’t identify the vessels hit, and mentioned it had no involvement with the Negra Francisca or Don Maca.

The Pentagon has additionally rejected any position within the sinking of a 3rd Ecuadorean fishing vessel — the Fiorella, which disappeared on the afternoon of Jan. 20 with eight crew members on board. All stay lacking. Nearby mariners reported smoke rising from the place the Fiorella was final seen.

On the identical day that the Fiorella went down, the captain knowledgeable his father on the mainland by way of satellite tv for pc telephone that “drones and patrol boats” had been following the boat, the daddy informed United Nations investigators, who deemed the Fiorella’s sinking a “forced disappearance.”

This month, the mystifying instances of the ill-fated Ecuadorean fishing craft drew transient consideration on Capitol Hill. During debate on a Pentagon funding invoice, Keating sought to pressure the Pentagon to launch unclassified movies, images and audio recordings of the trio of incidents.

“There is no other country in the region engaged in this kind of egregious behavior of extrajudicial killings,” mentioned Keating, who argued that the incidents mustn’t stay “shrouded in secrecy.”

His modification didn’t move. Rep. Mike Rogers, (R-Ala.), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, learn Pentagon disavowals of the incidents into the report and concluded: The strikes “did not occur.”

The fishermen’s allegations contain nations led by two of President Trump’s favored leaders within the area — Daniel Noboa of Ecuador and Nayib Bukele of El Salvador. Both have collaborated carefully with the White House safety technique. The places of work of each presidents didn’t reply to requests for remark.

In latest years, as drug warfare has escalated, Ecuador has undergone a darkish transformation: From one in every of Latin America’s most peaceable nations to one in every of its most violent. Rival gangs smuggling cocaine from neighboring Colombia and Peru to North America and Europe battle for management of coastal hubs — together with Manta.

In response, Noboa has adopted a tough-on-crime strategy and hyped his collaboration with the Trump administration in counter-narcotics on land and at sea.

In May, Noboa appeared at a discussion board in Washington and was requested about media reviews that an Ecuadorean fishing boat had been attacked and its crew taken into custody.

Noboa asserted the vessel had been in worldwide waters — an assertion that the fishermen deny — and, whereas in a roundabout way accusing the crew of wrongdoing, he declared: “We have hundreds, hundreds of fishermen involved in drug trafficking.”

The crews of the Negra Francisca and the Don Maca scoff at any purported connection to the narco commerce. None confronted any costs in El Salvador or in Ecuador. Many have been born and raised in coastal cities the place the ocean has supplied sustenance for generations.

“If we had been involved in anything illicit, we would have been in jail,” mentioned Palacios Vera of the Don Maca.

Many stay bitter about what they name an absence of assist from Ecuadorean authorities. The authorities didn’t reimburse the fishermen for the journeys again from El Salvador and didn’t cowl medical bills for these injured within the assaults, the crew members mentioned.

Lawyers have vowed to pursue harm claims in Ecuadorean, U.S. and worldwide courts.

“We consider this to have been an unjustifiable and disproportionate act by forces of a foreign nation against innocent civilians,” mentioned Jorge Chiriboga, an lawyer representing the Negra Francisca crew.

Flores, captain of the Negra Francisca, mentioned the vessel — valued round $400,000 — belonged to his father, 84. It was uninsured.

“It was our only source of work,” mentioned Flores, noting that the big boat may spend weeks at sea, netting a substantial haul.

Now, he added, he and others should fish on smaller craft solely able to shorter, much less worthwhile journeys.

Erick Fabricio Coello Santos, 28, who suffered eye and ear accidents on the Don Maca, says he’s now $10,000 in debt for medical therapies, and has misplaced 90% of the imaginative and prescient in his left eye. He can’t discover work to assist his autistic son, who’s 4.

“Sometimes I fall into bed, I think of all this and I don’t want to live,” Coello mentioned.

He isn’t the one survivor struggling trauma associated to the very ocean that has lengthy outlined life in Manta and environs.

“I have this deep psychological fear that something like that could happen to me again,” mentioned Toala García, the cook dinner on the Negra Francisca and a father of six. “It’s horrible to stay like this. I don’t know if I’ll ever return to fishing. But, proper now, I don’t need to have something to do with the ocean.’’

Special correspondents in Quito, Ecuador, and San Salvador contributed to this report.