Hernán Flores says he remembers the shock he felt when a sudden blast rocked his fishing boat in the Pacific.
“We heard the explosion – boom! It was the kind of blast that left my ears ringing. Right then, I felt blood running down me,” he recounted.
Flores had captained one of two Ecuadorian fishing crews who say their boats were sunk in an unexplained attack involving small, explosive-laden rotor drones launched by armed foreigners in March.
The incidents have been the subject of mounting interest in the United States, with the Washington Post this week reporting that the strikes were carried out as part of a covert CIA program – a claim CNN cannot independently verify. A spokesperson for the CIA told CNN, “We do not have any guidance to offer on this.”
CNN spoke to multiple fishermen about the experience and what happened to them next. This is the story through their eyes.
