The death toll from the Trump administration's monthslong series of strikes on suspected drug trafficking boats in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean has risen to at least 199 people after survivors of recent attacks were not found.
The total includes at least 22 people who had survived an initial strike only to be hit again or die at sea during the campaign that began last September. That includes three people who survived two separate strikes this month, according to the U.S. military, including two people who survived a strike this week in the eastern Pacific.
U.S. Southern Command says it notifies the U.S. Coast Guard of any survivors of such attacks, but those reports largely appear to be passed on to countries closer to the actual strike location.
When asked about any recent search and rescue efforts, Mexico's navy said it had received an alert from the U.S. Coast Guard about the strikes this month but it did not mention survivors. The U.S. Coast Guard referred requests for more information to Mexico's authorities.
The strikes have been contentious, with the Trump administration declaring that the U.S. is at war with Latin American drug cartels.
The first attack in the campaign occurred on Sept. 2. In early December, however, the Trump administration came under heavy scrutiny after it confirmed a Washington Post report that in that Sept. 2 attack, the U.S. had conducted a follow-on strike, or "double tap," that killed two survivors of the initial strike on the vessel.
Some lawmakers questioned whether the follow-on strike constituted a war crime.
The Pentagon's watchdog said this month that it plans to look into whether the U.S. military followed an established targeting framework when carrying out its strikes. However, the evaluation is focused specifically on what's known as the six-phase Joint Targeting Cycle and not the legality of the strikes, the inspector general's office said.
To date, only three people are known to have survived strikes and then been rescued. Two were rescued from a "narco sub" accused of carrying drugs in October and later returned to their home countries of Ecuador and Colombia.
In March, the U.S. Coast Guard said it recovered a survivor of a strike that killed two others and transferred the survivor to Costa Rican authorities.
Earlier this year, the families of two Trinidadian men who were killed in a U.S. missile strike on a boat in the Caribbean sued the Trump administration in federal court, arguing the "premeditated and intentional killings lack any plausible legal justification."
In December, the relatives of 42-year-old Alejandro Carranza Medina filed a complaint against the U.S. with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, saying Medina was not involved in drug trafficking and had been fishing when his boat was destroyed.
In:
Kaine on U.S. strikes on alleged drug boats
Watch: Kaine questions Caine about legal justification of U.S. strikes on alleged drug boats
(05:00)
