US Coast Guard Suspends Search for Survivors of Drug Boat Strikes in Pacific Ocean

The U.S. Coast Guard said on Jan. 2 that it has halted efforts to search for people in the water after U.S. forces attacked drug-smuggling boats in the Pacific Ocean earlier this week.

In a statement, the Coast Guard said it decided to suspend its search efforts after more than 65 hours of operation in the water approximately 400 nautical miles southwest of the Mexico–Guatemala border.

The search involved international rescue coordination centers and covered more than 1,090 nautical miles under favorable visual conditions, but no survivors or debris were found, it stated.

The Coast Guard noted that its “extremely limited” resources made the operation difficult to continue.

“Suspending a search is never easy and given the exhaustive search effort, lack of positive indications and declining probability of survival, we have suspended active search efforts pending further developments,” U.S. Coast Guard Capt. Patrick Dill, chief of incident management, Southwest District, said in the statement.

“At this stage of the response, the likelihood of a successful outcome, based on elapsed time, environmental conditions, and available resources for a person in the water is very low.”

The Coast Guard did not specify what triggered the search efforts.

The U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) earlier said its forces had conducted kinetic strikes against a convoy of three “narco-trafficking vessels” on Dec. 30, killing three people on the first vessel.

Individuals on the other two vessels jumped into the sea before follow-up strikes sank their boats, according to the U.S. military, without specifying the location of the incident.

SOUTHCOM noted that it immediately alerted the Coast Guard to conduct search and rescue efforts following the incident. It remains unclear how many people abandoned the vessels.

The U.S. military conducted another strike on two vessels on Dec. 31, 2025, in unspecified location, killing five people aboard the boats. It stated that the vessels were “transiting along known narco-trafficking routes and engaged in narco-trafficking.”

U.S. forces have carried out at least 35 strikes on drug-smuggling boats in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific since September, killing more than 115 individuals officials said were confirmed narco-terrorists.

The White House said in October 2025 that the attacks are a necessary escalation to stem the flow of illegal drugs into the United States, stating that the government is engaged in an “armed conflict” with drug cartels.

The U.S. military operations have heightened tensions with the Venezuelan regime, which President Donald Trump has accused of involvement in drug trafficking, an allegation Venezuelan leaders have denied.

Trump said on Dec. 29 that the United States had knocked out a loading facility linked to Venezuelan drug boats, but didn’t provide further details, in the first known direct operation in the South American country since the boat strikes began.

Rachel Roberts contributed to this report.