MEXICO CITY — In March, a pair of Ecuadorean fishing boats in the Pacific burst into flames, forcing both crews to abandon ship. Months later, the incidents — which occurred well after the Trump administration launched its bombing campaign targeting alleged drug boats — have left more questions than answers.
All 36 crewmen survived, but they have recounted an astonishing story: The fishermen say drones bombarded their boats and that they were then taken at gunpoint as prisoners aboard U.S. military vessels. After some hours, the fishermen say, they were turned over to Salvadoran patrol boats, which took the crews to El Salvador.
U.S. authorities deny any part in the puzzling series of events, which involved a pair of 35-ton fishing craft — not the sleek speedboats typically pictured in Department of Defense videos of maritime strikes.
Last week, two Democratic congressmen wrote to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other high-ranking Trump administration officials demanding “a full accounting” about the two boats and a third Ecuadorean fishing vessel that went down in January.
“These incidents have resulted in eight persons still missing or unaccounted for, credible survivor accounts of arbitrary or unlawful detention, abuse, and extrajudicial use of force by U.S. personnel,” wrote Reps. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) and Bill Keating (D-Mass.).
In an interview, Keating said: “Somebody did this, and we’re in the region, we have eyes everywhere.”
That the Ecuadorean fishing boats sank is unchallenged. But the question persists: What, exactly, sent them to the bottom of the ocean?
It had been a productive two weeks for La Negra Francisca Duarte II, which was returning to port with 3 tons of precious catch — mostly tuna, swordfish, marlin and shark.
Shortly after noon on March 17, about 170 miles off the coast of Ecuador’s Galapagos Islands, crew members said they sighted a blue boat in the distance. Probably another fishing vessel, they surmised.
About an hour later, they recalled in interviews, the fishermen spotted a more sinister sight overhead: a pair of drones.
What followed, the fishermen said, was an attack that sent flames and debris flying across the deck, injuring several crew members.
“We were all dazed, our ears were ringing,” said José Hernán Flores, 51, captain of the Negra Francisca. “There wasn’t even time to put on our life jackets. … Some jumped into the sea.”
One drone crashed on the boat, the captain said. He wanted to grab the downed aircraft, but feared it would explode.
His nephew, Jordy Flores, 21, a crew member, suffered a deep wound that exposed bone on his right foot, the captain said. “He didn’t stop screaming in pain,” he said.
The “blue boat,” survivors said, eventually took on board all 16 crew members, who had managed to clamber into a pair of auxiliary skiffs attached to the Negra Francisca.
The officers on the blue vessel spoke English and shouted orders via interpreters. “They pointed machine guns at us and ordered us to keep our hands up,” recalled Flores, the captain.
The officers cuffed the survivors with plastic restraints, placed hoods on their heads and demanded that no one speak, according to the fishermen.
They spent hours sprawled on the deck, broiling under the daytime sun, then chilled at night, the fishermen said.
“I prayed to God: ‘Please, don’t let these gringos execute us,’” said Gille Jimmy Toala García, 55, the cook on the Negra Francisca.
A fisherman on another boat recorded cellphone images of the Negra Francisca ablaze and posted the video, spurring alarm about the fate of the boat and its crew.
The next day, the fishermen said, they were turned over to a Salvadoran patrol boat and taken on an eight-day journey to El Salvador.
Those were days of profound anguish for distraught families back in Ecuador, who had no idea their loved ones were safe — and steaming toward Central America.
On March 19, hundreds gathered outside the harbor master’s office in Manta, the port city where the Negra Francisca was based, demanding information and an all-hands search for the 16 missing fishermen.
Once in El Salvador, the crewmen of the Negra Francisca say, they were questioned and denied any involvement with drug trafficking. They eventually made contact with loved ones who raised funds for flights home, and later threw welcome parties for the back-to-life mariners.
In a rare public acknowledgment of the incident, the Salvadoran navy said on March 23 on X that sailors were conducting a “humanitarian operation” to transfer 16 Ecuadorean shipwreck survivors to El Salvador, including two who were injured.
The navy did not say how the 16 were encountered, and the Salvadoran military did not respond to requests for elaboration.
Nine days after the Negra Francisca sank, another Ecuadorean fishing boat was trolling the fertile fishing grounds off the Galapagos. The fishermen aboard the Don Maca say they too spotted a “blue boat” — this time flying a U.S. flag.
Drones soon appeared in the sky and, without warning, opened fire on the Don Maca, according to the crew.
They also managed to clamber aboard auxiliary craft, and the blue boat took all 20 fishermen on board, crew members said.
Their accounts echo those of the Negra Francisca crew: cuffing and hooding by armed English-speakers before being turned over to a Salvadoran patrol craft, which took them to El Salvador.
As was the case with Negra Francisca, relatives and others — unable to enjoy the holidays of Holy Week — staged tense protests outside the harbor master’s headquarters in Manta, demanding action to find yet another boat that had gone missing.
Once in El Salvador, the crewmen of the Don Maca say they were interrogated, denied they were traffickers, and, eventually, were allowed to contact their families and leave for home.
One Don Maca survivor, Sebastian Palacios Vera, 54, recalled that the captain of the Salvadoran vessel related that “the Americans” told him that the crew was composed of “shipwreck” survivors.
“That was a lie,” he said. “We were never shipwrecked. We were attacked.”
The Trump administration’s campaign to blow up alleged drug-smuggling boats —while offering scant evidence that the vessels were ferrying narcotics — has killed at least 190 “narco-terrorists” so far. Critics denounce the operation as extrajudicial killings.
The Pentagon list of publicly acknowledged boat strikes doesn’t closely correlate with the dates or details of the sinkings of the Ecuadorean boats.
The Southern Command, which oversees U.S. military operations in the region, doesn’t name the vessels hit, and said it had no involvement with the Negra Francisca or Don Maca.
The Pentagon has also rejected any role in the sinking of a third Ecuadorean fishing vessel — the Fiorella, which disappeared on the afternoon of Jan. 20 with eight crew members on board. All remain missing. Nearby mariners reported smoke rising from where the Fiorella was last seen.
On the same day that the Fiorella went down, the captain informed his father on the mainland via satellite phone that “drones and patrol boats” had been following the boat, the father told United Nations investigators, who deemed the Fiorella’s sinking a “forced disappearance.”
This month, the mystifying cases of the ill-fated Ecuadorean fishing craft drew brief attention on Capitol Hill. During debate on a Pentagon funding bill, Keating sought to force the Pentagon to release unclassified videos, photographs and audio recordings of the trio of incidents.
“There is no other country in the region engaged in this kind of egregious behavior of extrajudicial killings,” said Keating, who argued that the incidents should not remain “shrouded in secrecy.”
His amendment failed to pass. Rep. Mike Rogers, (R-Ala.), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, read Pentagon disavowals of the incidents into the record and concluded: The strikes “did not occur.”
The fishermen’s allegations involve nations led by two of President Trump’s favored leaders in the region — Daniel Noboa of Ecuador and Nayib Bukele of El Salvador. Both have collaborated closely with the White House security strategy. The offices of both presidents did not respond to requests for comment.
In recent years, as drug warfare has escalated, Ecuador has undergone a dark transformation: From one of Latin America’s most peaceful nations to one of its most violent. Rival gangs smuggling cocaine from neighboring Colombia and Peru to North America and Europe battle for control of coastal hubs — including Manta.
In response, Noboa has adopted a tough-on-crime approach and hyped his collaboration with the Trump administration in counter-narcotics on land and at sea.
In May, Noboa appeared at a forum in Washington and was asked about media reports that an Ecuadorean fishing boat had been attacked and its crew taken into custody.
Noboa asserted the vessel had been in international waters — an assertion that the fishermen deny — and, while not directly accusing the crew of wrongdoing, he declared: “We have hundreds, hundreds of fishermen involved in drug trafficking.”
The crews of the Negra Francisca and the Don Maca scoff at any purported connection to the narco trade. None faced any charges in El Salvador or in Ecuador. Many were born and raised in coastal towns where the sea has provided sustenance for generations.
“If we had been involved in anything illicit, we would have been in jail,” said Palacios Vera of the Don Maca.
Many remain bitter about what they call a lack of support from Ecuadorean authorities. The government didn’t reimburse the fishermen for the trips back from El Salvador and didn’t cover medical expenses for those injured in the attacks, the crew members said.
Lawyers have vowed to pursue damage claims in Ecuadorean, U.S. and international courts.
“We consider this to have been an unjustifiable and disproportionate act by forces of a foreign nation against innocent civilians,” said Jorge Chiriboga, an attorney representing the Negra Francisca crew.
Flores, captain of the Negra Francisca, said the vessel — valued around $400,000 — belonged to his father, 84. It was uninsured.
“It was our only source of work,” said Flores, noting that the large boat could spend weeks at sea, netting a considerable haul.
Now, he added, he and others must fish on smaller craft only capable of shorter, less profitable journeys.
Erick Fabricio Coello Santos, 28, who suffered eye and ear injuries on the Don Maca, says he is now $10,000 in debt for medical treatments, and has lost 90% of the vision in his left eye. He can’t find work to help his autistic son, who is 4.
“Sometimes I fall into bed, I think of all this and I don’t want to live,” Coello said.
He is not the only survivor suffering trauma related to the very ocean that has long defined life in Manta and environs.
“I have this deep psychological fear that something like that could happen to me again,” said Toala García, the cook on the Negra Francisca and a father of six. “It’s horrible to live like this. I don’t know if I will ever return to fishing. But, right now, I don’t want to have anything to do with the sea.’’
Special correspondents in Quito, Ecuador, and San Salvador contributed to this report.
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