The search was conducted at an undisclosed location following a recent attack by the US military on an alleged drug smuggling vessel.
Published January 3, 2026
The U.S. Coast Guard announced it had halted its search for survivors, days after the U.S. military said it had attacked two more ships in the eastern Pacific Ocean during an ongoing military operation in Venezuela and surrounding waters.
The Coast Guard said in a statement on its website Friday that the three-day search continued for more than 65 hours in waters “approximately 400 nautical miles (740 kilometers) southwest of the Mexico-Guatemala border,” but no sightings of survivors were reported.
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US media earlier reported that the search was underway in an area with weather conditions of “9 feet deep and 40 knot winds.”
The U.S. Army Southern Command announced on Tuesday that it had collided with three convoys sailing in the eastern Pacific Ocean. The statement said three people were killed on one ship, but passengers on the other ship jumped from the ship and “were able to distance themselves before each ship sank in the ensuing battle.”
Two more people were killed in a subsequent attack on another ship at an undisclosed location, the military said.
In both cases, the military offered no evidence and said the ships were smuggling drugs.
The attack brings the total number of known boat attacks since early September to 33, with at least 115 deaths, according to figures shared by President Donald Trump’s administration.
The Coast Guard did not say Friday how many survivors are believed to be in the water. The military previously said it immediately alerted the coast guard as there were no navy vessels nearby.
The Coast Guard then dispatched a plan from California to notify vessels in the area.
Human rights watchdogs and international law experts said attacks by U.S. forces on alleged drug smuggling vessels amounted to extrajudicial killings, meaning they were carried out without legal authority or due process.
The Trump administration said the targets were so-called “narco-terrorists” whose motive was not profit but an ambition to destabilize the United States through drug trafficking.
The military has come under particular scrutiny after carrying out additional attacks on boats in the Caribbean in early September, which apparently left survivors of the first attack dead. The attack appears to violate the military’s own rules of engagement and the law of armed conflict.
There are other documented cases of passengers surviving strikes, including one in late October when the Mexican Navy called off the search after four days. Two other survivors of a submarine attack in the Caribbean that month were also rescued and sent to their home countries of Ecuador and Colombia.
Ecuadorian authorities later released the man, saying there was no evidence he had committed any crimes in the South American country.
U.S. military attacks on ships have largely been concentrated in waters around Venezuela, where the country has been subject to increased U.S. sanctions, a significant buildup of U.S. forces at the border, and what President Trump has described as attacks on piers inside Venezuelan territory.
The Trump administration also imposed a blockade on sanctioned Venezuelan oil tankers traveling to and from the South American country’s coast.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has said the United States is trying to overthrow his government and seize the country’s vast oil reserves.
But on Thursday, he struck a more conciliatory tone, saying he was open to negotiating a deal with the United States to combat drug trafficking.
