Six months on from a possible US strike against the Ecuadorian vessel Fiorella, Amnesty International recalls that the US policy of carrying out air strikes against boats at sea, under the pretext that they are transporting drugs to the United States, constitutes a practice of extrajudicial executions and other violations of human rights that must cease immediately.
On 20 January 2026, the fishing vessel Fiorella disappeared in international waters, having set sail from the port of Jaramijó in Ecuador seven days earlier. Since then, the whereabouts of eight of its ten crew members are unknown. The indications are that the United States may have assaulted the boat as part of its latest “Southern Spear” counter narcotics operation, in which more than 60 boats have been attacked in the region and over 200 people have been killed since September 2025.
Amnesty International’s Evidence Lab has reconstructed the route covered by the fishing vessel using VMS (vessel monitoring system) data available on the Global Fishing Watch platform, confirming that the Fiorella left the port of Jaramijó, in the province of Manabí, and sailed through Ecuadorian waters towards the Galapagos Islands, which belong to Ecuador.
