UN human rights experts on Tuesday accused the United States of carrying out “extrajudicial executions” of 14 people killed in “unlawful” U.S. military strikes targeting boats that Washington claimed belonged to Venezuelan drug traffickers.
اضافة اعلان
The three independent experts said in a statement: “International law does not permit governments to simply and easily kill alleged drug traffickers.”
On Tuesday, U.S. President Donald Trump confirmed that American forces had carried out a military strike on Monday targeting a boat carrying drug traffickers en route from Venezuela to the United States, noting that the strike killed three people.
Earlier this month, U.S. forces had destroyed another boat carrying 11 individuals, whom Washington asserted were all working for Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua gang.
In their statement, the UN experts stressed they “condemn the extrajudicial executions carried out by the United States” against the 14 confirmed dead.
They added that “under international law, all states must respect the right to life, including when acting on the high seas or in foreign territories.”
The experts warned that “the use of potentially lethal force is permissible only in cases of lawful self-defense or to protect others against an imminent threat of death.”
