Tag: narco wars

The Andes
Ecuador

Rights abuses seen in US-Ecuador joint operations

Human Rights Watch released a report detailing four attacks on Ecuadorian persons, properties and vessels that they attribute to an intensified counter-narcotics campaign led by the US with the partnership of the Ecuadorian government. The first attack took place in March on the farming community of San Martín, Sucumbíos province, and was confirmed by the US government as a partnered military operation. The remaining three incidents took place at sea, off Ecuador’s Pacific coast. They are the January disappearance of the Fiorella, an Ecuadorian fishing vessel, and March drone attacks on two other fishing vessels, La Negra Francisco Duarte II and the Don Maca. The US has denied responsibility in these maritime strikes. (Image: Nicolas Raymond via Flickr)

Africa
Wagner

Russian mercs run opioid empire in CAR

Remnants of the Russian mercenary group Wagner apparently not integrated into Moscow’s new Africa Corps have gone rogue in the Central African Republic, financing their operations through narco-trafficking. According to a Wall Street Journal report, the mercenaries are running an opioid empire, supplying tramadol to the national army, local militias, its own forces, and workers in gold mines the group operates. A painkiller in normal doses, tramadol acts as a stimulant in higher doses that can reduce fear, exhaustion, and hunger in users. Proceeds from tramadol distribution, including exports, have helped the Wagner remnants in CAR maintain independence from Moscow. (Photo: Russian mercenaries in the Central African Republic. Credit: Corbeau News Centrafrique via Wikimedia Commons)

The Andes
Cuzco

US pushes ‘Donroe Doctrine’ at Cuzco defense summit

Representatives from over 30 countries gathered in the Peruvian city of Cuzco for the Conference of Defense Ministers of the Americas, where top Pentagon official Elbridge Colby used the occasion to defend the “Donroe Doctrine.” As at other regional security summits, including the “Shield of the Americas” conference held in Florida in March, Trump officials cast drug trafficking and irregular migration as threats to US security, urged regional governments to increase military spending, and called for deeper security collaboration with Washington. An increasing number of the right-wing governments in attendance have embraced closer military ties with the United States through joint strikes and new military bases—even as militarized policies fail to curb organized crime and violence in countries like Ecuador, a key testing ground for the administration’s renewed war on “narcoterrorism.” (Photo: Martin St-Amant via Wikimedia Commons)

Southeast Asia
Philippines

Extrajudicial killings continue in Philippines

Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported that authorities in the Philippines continue to conduct extrajudicial killings, with no accountability, as part of the government’s anti-drug campaign. Ten years after then-President Rodrigo Duterte launched his brutal “war on drugs,” serious human rights violations remain ongoing. According to HRW, the number of killings in the anti-drug campaign has reached 1,273 since Ferdinand Marcos Jr. became president in 2022. The report noted a decline in the number of extrajudicial killings compared to rates under Duterte’s presidency, but found that illegal arrests have significantly increased. In 2025, Duterte was arrested under an International Criminal Court (ICC) warrant for crimes against humanity related to his “war on drugs.” The trial is scheduled for November. (Image: Grunge Love via Flickr)

Southern Cone
Mothers of May

Brazil: demand justice 20 years after ‘Crimes of May’

UN human rights experts called on Brazil to ensure full justice, accountability and reparations for victims and families affected by the 2006 “Crimes of May.” They warned that continued impunity worsens the suffering of victims and perpetuates systemic racism and police violence. The 2006 violence began when the criminal organization Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC) launched coordinated prison rebellions and attacks against public officials after authorities transferred hundreds of suspected gang members to maximum-security prisons. Police and death squads carried out a retaliatory campaign that resulted in more than 500 deaths and at least four “enforced disappearances.” (Photo: Conectas)

The Andes
Colombia

Colombia: growing toll from armed conflict

In its latest annual report, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) found that the armed conflict in Colombia saw the “worst humanitarian consequences” of the past decade in 2025. The number of people killed or injured by explosive devices rose by 34% to 965, overwhelmingly non-combatants. The number of individual disappearances doubled to 308. Violations of international humanitarian law documented by the ICRC reached 845 cases, while figures for displacement and “confinement” doubled. According to the Comprehensive Victim Support & Reparation Unit (UARIV), at least 235,619 people were displaced individually in 2025, while 87,069 were displaced in mass displacement events, and 176,730 remained “confined” in communities under siege by armed actors. (Map: PCL)

The Caribbean
Cuba

US charges Raúl Castro in 1996 plane shoot-down

US federal prosecutors unsealed an indictment charging former Cuban leader Raúl Castro and five former Cuban military pilots in the 1996 shoot-down of two civilian planes flown by the Miami exile group Brothers to the Rescue, an attack that killed four people. An investigation by the International Civil Aviation Organization found that the planes were shot down over international waters, although this was disputed by Cuba. Castro, 94, headed Cuba’s armed forces at the time and later served as the island’s president. Cuba’s President Miguel Díaz-Canel called the charges “a political maneuver, devoid of any legal foundation.” (Map: Perry-Castañeda Library)

Watching the Shadows
Honduras

‘Hondurasgate’ leaks reveal Israeli destabilization scheme

“Hondurasgate”—an alleged plot involving Israel, the United States, and former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández to destabilize Latin America’s progressive governments through disinformation—has thrust the region’s ties to Israel back into the spotlight. The scandal emerged ahead of a diplomatic visit by Israeli President Isaac Herzog to Central America as part of a push to consolidate alliances with the region’s newly ascendant right-wing leaders. (Map: Perry-Castañeda Library)

Southeast Asia
ICC

Philippines urged to arrest fugitive senator

Amnesty International called on the Philippines to apprehend Sen. Ronald dela Rosa, expressing deep concern over reports that he fled the Senate building to evade an International Criminal Court arrest warrant. Following rumors that a warrant had been issued for his arrest for crimes against humanity, dela Rosa disappeared from public view, re-emerging this week to participate in a Senate leadership vote. He apparently fled the chamber after spotting Philippine government agents waiting to arrest him, and spent two days barricaded in the Senate building. He escaped the building after gunfire erupted, and his present whereabouts are unknown. (Photo: Tony Webster via Wikimedia Commons)

Watching the Shadows
deportees

Trump admin has transferred 17,400 to ‘third countries’

The Trump administration has built a network of third-country transfer agreements with more than 30 governments and used them to remove over 17,400 people, in some cases in defiance of federal court orders and after individuals had won their release through habeas corpus, according to data released by Human Rights First and Refugees International. The organizations report that the administration in April re-arrested and forcibly transferred to third countries people who had previously been granted withholding of removal by US immigration judges and had prevailed on habeas petitions challenging the legality of their detention. The report documents an attempted transfer of individuals to Libya last year in violation of a court order then in effect. (Photo: Venezuelan deportees in Honduras. Credit: ICE via Wikimedia Commons)

Syria
Suwayda

Fighting again erupts in Syria’s Suwayda

Clashes broke out in Syria’s southern as-Suwayda province between the central government’s Internal Security Forces and Druze armed groups affiliated with the region’s self-declared “National Guard.” Fighters from the Guard’s “501 Knights of Hamza” battalion attempted to advance toward government lines in the governorate’s western countryside under heavy cover fire, including from truck-mounted machine-guns and rocket-launchers. Government forces responded with mortar fire. Since the fall of the Bashar Assad dictatorship in December 2024, Israel has occupied large areas of eastern as-Suwayda, and is believed to have dropped arms to Druze fighters in the region. The province has been effectively divided since fighting broke out last year between Druze militia and central government forces and their local Bedouin allies. (Map: Google)

Mexico
Mexico

US charges Mexican officials with drug trafficking

A grand jury in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York indicted 10 current and former Mexican officials for importing large amounts of drugs into the United States, along with related offenses. The officials include the current governor of Sinaloa state, Rubén Rocha Moya, as well as a Sinaloa deputy attorney general, a former Sinaloa secretary of public security, a former deputy director of the Sinaloa State Police, and a federal senator. The indictment accuses the officials of ties to one faction of the Sinaloa Cartel, “Los Chapitos,” run by the sons of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, who is serving a life prison term in the US. In a seeming reference to the fact that Rocha Moya and others of those indicted are from Mexico’s ruling MORENA party, President Claudia Sheinbaum said: “[I]t it is evident that the objective of these charges by the Department of Justice is political… We will not allow any foreign government to…decide the future of the Mexican people.” (Map: Google)