A United Nations report has concluded that US strikes on alleged drug-trafficking boats in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific are illegal and could constitute “crimes against humanity”.

In a report published on Monday, UN Special Rapporteur Ben Saul said attacks on 68 vessels from September last year to August killed at least 223 people and entailed the “illegal use” of disproportionate force.

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The findings were released just days after the US military announced its latest attack on another boat, which killed four people. US President Donald Trump’s administration, which frames the operations against the boats as part of a military conflict, said they are necessary to prevent the flow of lethal drugs into the United States. It has described the drug shipments as an “armed attack” on US territory.

Here’s what we know about why the US has been attacking the boats and whether these strikes are legal:

What does the UN report say?

The report found that the strikes by US forces are unjustified under national and international law and thus amount to “serial extrajudicial killings in violation of the right to life”.

They “plausibly constitute crimes against humanity”, it said.

Even if those attacked were found to be members of organised criminal or “terrorist” groups as the US has claimed, there is no evidence that they had launched an armed attack on the US or were being used as proxies by other countries, which would warrant a US military attack, the report noted.

Saul, the UN special rapporteur on counterterrorism and human rights, added that drug trafficking “is not equivalent to a military attack”.

Furthermore, observers have noted, the Trump administration has never provided any evidence that any of the boats it has struck were trafficking drugs.

The UN report also cast doubt over the legality of the US abduction of former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in January, during which 75 people were killed, as well as collaborations with other Latin American countries under the Trump administration-initiated “Shield of the Americas”. The initiative seeks to extend US antidrug operations to land across the region.

The UN report called for internal investigations and for commanders involved in the operations to be held accountable.

It concluded that the strikes have failed to prevent the arrival of cocaine in the US on container ships. which are not adequately checked.

Why has the US launched strikes on boats?

Washington first began striking boats it claimed were trafficking drugs from Venezuela to the US across the Eastern Pacific and Caribbean in September last year.

The US military has routinely released videos on social media showing the moments the vessels are hit but has disclosed little about those killed and has not provided evidence tying them to drug trafficking.

Furthermore, experts said most drugs come into the US via Mexico by land through its southern border and do not originate in Venezuela. Families of those killed have often said they were fishermen and not drug smugglers.

The UN report listed 223 casualties from 68 strikes carried out through August.

Two additional attacks this month have raised the number of those killed to 234 in 70 strikes.

In the first set of attacks on September 2, 2025, the US military allegedly used a “double tap” tactic, launching a second attack to finish off the survivors of an initial strike. The first attacks killed 11 people.

The move drew intense criticism from the US Congress, which called for the Pentagon to release full videos of the strikes.

There were also allegations that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had given the order to “kill them all” in the double-tap strike. However, senior military commanders later testified in Congress that he did not.

Speaking to Al Jazeera, Michael Vigil, former chief of international operations at the US Drug Enforcement Administration, said: “That is murder. No matter how you spell it out, it’s murder, … and it shocks the moral conscience.”

How does the US justify the strikes?

The most recent attack on Saturday killed four people, according to the US military. It alleged that the boat was travelling “along established narco-trafficking routes” and “confirmed intelligence revealed the vessel’s active involvement in narco-trafficking”.

Trump has claimed the US is in an “armed conflict” with drug cartels and has repeatedly justified the boat attacks as necessary to halt the flow of drugs into the country.

Senior officials have also claimed the US is abiding by due process. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a Senate hearing in July that “every strike has a legal officer on the deck that has to make a determination about whether the call is legal or not”.

Rights organisations, however, have challenged the killings. In January, the families of two Trinidadian men – Chad Joseph, 26, and Rishi Samaroo, 41 – brought the first case against the US government over the boat attacks to a federal court in Massachusetts. The suit, aided by US legal groups, argued the victims were fishermen.

Separately in December, the family of Colombian Alejandro Carranza Medina filed a human rights complaint with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, which is part of the Organization of American States.

Can any action be taken against US officials?

The term “crimes against humanity” implies that killings have been carried out systematically in accordance with a plan by a state or an organised group and are an especially serious crime.

Perpetrators accused of such crimes can be tried and convicted only before the International Criminal Court (ICC), which examines whether those carrying out attacks were aware that their actions targeted a civilian population and whether their actions resulted in the killing of multiple people.

US courts cannot try such cases because no specific federal laws criminalise crimes against humanity.

The US is not a member of the ICC, and no American has been tried before the court in The Hague.

The Trump administration has been hostile to the ICC because of arrest warrants issued for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza. The US has complained the court is targeting officials from non-ICC countries.

Washington has sanctioned more than a dozen ICC judges and prosecutors since February last year and is reportedly preparing more sanctions against the court itself.