US strikes on Ecuadorian fishing boats raise humanitarian concerns but Trump admin not wavering

Attorney says fishers ‘losing their livelihoods’, but Marco Rubio maintains US still willing to ‘blow up ships if need be’

While the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, was being decorated in Quito by Ecuador’s president for “helping to promote peace in the region”, 10 Ecuadorian fishers whose boat had been blown up by US forces were adrift in the eastern Pacific.

On 8 September, a day before Rubio arrived, a US patrol vessel intercepted the fishing boat Don Rufo in international waters near Ecuador.

“The gringos were all armed as if they were going to war,” said the boat’s captain, Mero Calderón, 50. “I tried to show them our catch to prove that we were there working, but they wouldn’t listen,” he added.

“They brought two huge bombs aboard, took us to their ship, handcuffed and blindfolded us, and blew our boat to pieces,” said Calderón, who along with five other fishers, was handed over to local authorities.