The household of a Colombian man who was killed in a U.S. navy strike on a ship within the Caribbean has lodged a grievance in opposition to the USA with the Inter-American Fee on Human Rights (IACHR).
The household of 42-year-old Alejandro Carranza Medina, who was killed on Sept. 15, rejected assertions there have been any medicine on the vessel focused in Washington’s anti-narcotics navy marketing campaign, and insisted he was a fisherman simply doing his job on the open sea.
“We know that Pete Hegseth, US Secretary of Defense, was responsible for ordering the bombing of boats like those of Alejandro Carranza Medina and the murder of all those on such boats,” reads the grievance seen by AFP on Wednesday.
U.S. strikes within the Caribbean and the japanese Pacific have killed greater than 80 individuals on boats that Washington claims, with out offering proof, have been ferrying medicine from Venezuela. Authorized specialists and lawmakers crucial of the strikes have argued that the navy motion focusing on the suspected drug smuggling boats are legally doubtful.
Relations and victims’ governments insist a few of these killed have been fishermen, and rights teams say the strikes are unlawful even when the targets have been in reality drug traffickers.
The IACHR grievance mentioned Hegseth gave the orders “despite the fact that he did not know the identity of those being targeted for these bombings and extra-judicial killings” it mentioned have been “ratified” by President Trump.
The IACHR is a quasi-judicial physique of the Group of American States, created to guard human rights within the area.
In a Cupboard assembly on Tuesday, Hegseth mentioned the U.S. has “only just begun striking narco-boats and putting narco-terrorists at the bottom of the ocean.” He famous a latest pause in strikes, explaining that “it’s hard to find boats to strike right now.”
“Deterrence has to matter,” he mentioned. “Not arrest and hand over and then do it again, the rinse-and-repeat approach of previous administrations.”
Colombian President Gustavo Petro, who has known as the U.S. strikes “extrajudicial executions,” has vowed help for the household in its quest for justice.
“My lawyer Dan Kovalik has begun the legal defense of the Carranza family, victims of the American assassination of Alejandro Carranza, the fisherman from Santa Marta killed by a missile fired at his boat in the Caribbean and poor in solidarity,” Petro wrote on social media on Monday.
A “good man,” widow says
In an interview with AFP in October, Carranza’s widow Katerine Hernandez, mentioned he had been a “good man.”
He left behind 4 youngsters.
“He had no ties to drug trafficking, and his daily activity was fishing,” Hernandez mentioned.
“Why did they just take his life like that?” she requested throughout the interview. “The fishermen have the right to live. Why didn’t they just detain them?”
Earlier than his final journey, Carranza advised his father he was heading to a spot “with good fish.”
Carmela Medina and Alejandro Carranza, mother and father of Alejandro Carranza, a Colombian man who allegedly died when the U.S. bombed a ship supposedly carrying medicine within the Caribbean, pose for a photograph at their home in Santa Marta on Oct. 21, 2025.
MARCO PERDOMO/AFP by way of Getty Pictures
Days handed with out contact, till the household discovered of the bombing on tv.
“The days went by and he didn’t call,” Hernandez mentioned.
Associates interviewed by AFP additionally insisted Carranza was a fisherman.
“He went offshore to catch sierra, tuna, and snapper, which are found far out at this time of year,” mentioned Cesar Henriquez, who has identified him since childhood.
“He always came back to Santa Marta, secured his boat, and went home. I never knew him to do anything bad,” Henriquez advised AFP.
Caitlin Yilek
contributed to this report.
Extra from CBS Information
