More than a dozen Ecuadorian fishermen are suing the US government after they survived a military drone attack in the Pacific ocean earlier this year that sank their boat and left two of them with serious burns from the explosions.

The 17 March attack on the La Negra Francesca Duarte II was part of the Trump administration’s Operation Southern Spear campaign, announced in November 2025 ostensibly to counter “narco-terrorists” it said operated in the Caribbean and Pacific.

The Washington office on Latin America (Wola) said as many as 250 people have been killed by the US military in subsequent attacks. The group considers the actions extrajudicial executions because the government has provided no proof that the victims were engaged in trafficking.

In the lawsuit seen by the Guardian, to be filed in US district court for the western district of Pennsylvania on Monday, the 16 fishermen insist they had no connection with the drug trade and were illegally targeted by the crew of an unidentified US military vessel about 385 nautical miles from the port of Manta as they returned from a two-week fishing trip.

Two armed drones, the filing states, exploded on their boat, setting it ablaze and destroying it completely, and two of the crew “were themselves set on fire and burned on their legs, arms and back”.