Donald Trump announced this Saturday, October 18, the return of two survivors of a US attack against a submarine in the Caribbean Sea to their countries of origin, Colombia and Ecuador, at a time when Washington intensifies operations against alleged drug traffickers.
Four “narcoterrorists” were on board and two were killed, the US president wrote on his Truth Social network, specifying that the two survivors were “in the process of being returned to their countries of origin, Ecuador and Colombia, where they will be detained and prosecuted.”
Colombian President Gustavo Petro confirmed on Saturday the return to Colombia of a national who survived a US attack on a submarine. “We welcomed the Colombian detained in the narco-submarine, we are happy that he is alive and will be judged in accordance with the laws,” he said in X, without further details.
“Submarine transporting drugs”
Donald Trump indicated on Friday that a “submarine carrying drugs” had been the target of one of the recent US attacks carried out in the Caribbean and that it had been “built specifically to transport enormous quantities of drugs.”
U.S. intelligence “confirmed that this ship was filled primarily with fentanyl and other illegal drugs,” it said in its Saturday post.
Washington has deployed major military assets to the Caribbean – including seven ships and stealth fighter jets – in what it presents as a fight against drug trafficking, and has carried out at least six attacks there since early September that have killed at least 27 people.
A legality that is debated
The legality of these attacks against suspects not intercepted or interrogated, in foreign or international waters, is debated. Donald Trump is particularly targeting Venezuela, whose president, Nicolás Maduro, he accuses of being at the head of a vast drug trafficking organization to the United States.
Caracas vigorously denies this and accuses Washington of using drug trafficking as a pretext “to impose a regime change” in Venezuela and seize its important oil reserves.
Washington has not revealed the departure point of the target submarine. Semi-submersibles built in clandestine shipyards in the jungle have been used for years to transport narcotics from South America, particularly Colombia.
Source: BFM TV
