{"id":539754,"date":"2025-10-31T11:58:15","date_gmt":"2025-10-31T11:58:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/539754\/"},"modified":"2025-10-31T11:58:15","modified_gmt":"2025-10-31T11:58:15","slug":"un-human-rights-chief-says-us-strikes-on-alleged-drug-boats-are-unacceptable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/539754\/","title":{"rendered":"UN human rights chief says US strikes on alleged drug boats are ‘unacceptable’"},"content":{"rendered":"

GENEVA — The U.N. human rights chief said Friday that U.S. military strikes<\/a> against boats in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean allegedly carrying illegal drugs from South America are \u201cunacceptable\u201d and must stop.<\/p>\n

The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker T\u00fcrk called for an investigation into the strikes, in what appeared to mark the first such condemnation of its kind from a United Nations organization. <\/p>\n

Ravina Shamdasani, a spokeswoman for T\u00fcrk’s office, relayed his message on Friday at a regular U.N. briefing: \u201cThese attacks and their mounting human cost are unacceptable. The U.S. must halt such attacks and take all measures necessary to prevent the extrajudicial killing of people aboard these boats.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said T\u00fcrk believed \u201cairstrikes by the United States of America on boats in the Caribbean and in the Pacific violate international human rights law.\u201d<\/p>\n

President Donald Trump has justified the attacks<\/a> on the boats as a necessary escalation to stem the flow of drugs into the United States, but the campaign against drug cartels has been divisive among countries in the region. <\/p>\n

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Wednesday announced the latest U.S. military strike<\/a> in the campaign, against a boat he said was carrying drugs in the eastern Pacific Ocean. All four people aboard were killed. It was the 14th strike since the campaign began in early September, while the death toll has grown to at least 61.<\/p>\n

Shamdasani noted the U.S. explanations of the efforts as an anti-drug and counter-terrorism campaign, but said countries have long agreed that the fight against illicit drug trafficking is a law-enforcement matter governed by \u201ccareful limits\u201d placed on the use of lethal force.<\/p>\n

Intentional use of lethal force is allowed only as a last resort against someone representing \u201can imminent threat to life,\u201d she said. “Otherwise, it would amount to a violation of the right of life and constitute extrajudicial killings.\u201d<\/p>\n

The strikes are taking place \u201coutside the context” of armed conflict or active hostilities, Shamdasani said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"GENEVA — The U.N. human rights chief said Friday that U.S. military strikes against boats in the Caribbean…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":539755,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5311],"tags":[174018,3907,36781,4179,47723,4582,8614,2003,285,49,978,659,10673,263],"class_list":{"0":"post-539754","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-174018","9":"tag-article","10":"tag-counterterrorism","11":"tag-general-news","12":"tag-homicide","13":"tag-human-rights","14":"tag-international-agreements","15":"tag-law-enforcement","16":"tag-politics","17":"tag-united-states","18":"tag-us","19":"tag-usa","20":"tag-washington-news","21":"tag-world-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115468664992198215","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539754","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=539754"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539754\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/539755"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=539754"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=539754"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=539754"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}