The family of Alejandro Carranza, the fisherman identified by President Gustavo Petro as one of the civilians killed in the United States attacks against alleged drug boats in the Caribbean, has filed a formal complaint against Washington before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR). The news, reported by the British media Guardian and confirmed by EL PAÍS, it represents the first claim before an international organization for the military campaign launched by orders of Donald Trump in September and in which more than 80 people have already died.
The petition document, to which this newspaper has had access, has the support of Daniel Kovalik, a human rights lawyer and representative of President Petro in several international cases. In the request, he briefly explains the events in which, he claims, Carranza died: “On September 15, 2025, the United States Army bombed Alejandro Andrés Carranza Medina’s boat, in which he was sailing through the Caribbean, off the coast of Colombia. He died in the bombing. Mr. Carranza was a fisherman and Colombian citizen.” The man went out to work and never returned home.
The complaint points directly to the US Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, as being “responsible for ordering the bombing of vessels like those of Alejandro Carranza Medina and the murder of all the people who were on them.” According to the American press, Hegseth has given the order to “kill all” the crew of the suspicious vessels, even if their alleged relationship with drug traffickers was not confirmed. The document also indicates that Trump “has affirmed the conduct of Secretary Hegseth.”
“By carrying out this extrajudicial murder, the United States has violated the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man,” states the petition signed by Carranza’s wife, Katerine Hernández Bernal. The family accuses the United States of violating the rights to life, equality before the law, recognition of legal personality, a fair trial and due process of law. According to the document, there is a witness to the murder: he is a leader of a fishermen’s association in Santa Marta who has preferred to keep his name confidential due to “threats from paramilitaries.”
Petro denounced at the end of October that Washington’s second attack in the Caribbean Sea against a vessel (on September 15) had occurred against a Colombian fisherman and “presumably” occurred in national waters. The Colombian president then denounced that the man, whom he identified as Carranza, 42, had no ties to drug trafficking. Trump, for his part, noted that three “Venezuelan narcoterrorists” who were supposedly “transporting illegal narcotics bound for the United States” died in that operation.
The UN and several human rights organizations such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have classified the bombings against the alleged drug boats as “extrajudicial executions.” UN human rights chief Volker Türk has said these actions “violate international law”. The military campaign, named Spear of the South, began with attacks against vessels in the Caribbean Sea, which later extended to the Pacific Ocean, the most common drug trafficking route for drugs that go from South to North America. More than 80 people have died and only two survivors have been identified: a Colombian and an Ecuadorian, who were sailing in an alleged narco-submarine when it was attacked on October 18. Both were released in their respective countries as no crimes against them were proven.
The IACHR, based in Washington, is an organ of the Organization of American States (OAS) and its function is to promote and protect human rights on the continent. If the entity finds that one of the 35 member states is responsible for violating human rights, it issues a report that can include everything from recommendations and reparations to sanctions against those responsible and push for legislative changes. If there is no amicable solution, the cases can be escalated to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, whose rulings have binding effects. The United States is one of the founding countries of the OAS.
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