Amnesty International has renewed its call for an investigation into the alleged involvement of the United States in attacks on Ecuadorian vessels, including the Fiorella fishing vessel.
Eight crew members have remained missing since January, and Ana Piquer, Americas Director at Amnesty International, said that “the US role in this attack is becoming increasingly difficult to deny”.
The Fiorella was a longline fishing boat mainly dedicated to catching species such as marlin, tuna, dorado (mahi-mahi) and shark, and it set sail from Jaramijó on the night of January 13th with ten crew members on board.
After it lost internet connection, the only means of communication in the days that followed was the satellite device carried by its captain, Juan Carlos Valencia, who maintained daily contact with his family and the boat's owners.
During the first days of the trip, no major incidents were reported. However, from the fourth day onwards, the Fiorella was allegedly subjected to sustained monitoring by aircraft, patrol boats and drones bearing US markings. Juan Carlos Valencia, the fishing boat’s captain, sent daily satellite messages to his family expressing his growing concern about the surveillance.
On August 12th, The New York Times published an investigation revealing that a maritime patrol plane, crewed by English-speaking pilots and based at a military facility in El Salvador, flew and followed the Fiorella vessel for four days, including January 20th, the day it disappeared.
According to the newspaper, the aircraft is not part of the U.S. government’s fleet but was registered to a private company in Virginia, suggesting possible collaboration between private entities and U.S. authorities in the attack.
A day later, on August 13th, The Washington Post published a report alleging that the attack on the Fiorella vessel had been carried out as part of a covert program by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), with the alleged direct approval of the President of the United States.
In July, Amnesty International reconstructed the Fiorella’s route using data from the Vessel Monitoring System (VMS), which confirmed that the vessel set sail from the port of Jaramijó on January 13th and transmitted its last signal on January 20th, in international waters between the Ecuadorian coast and the Galápagos Islands.
Since then, eight of its ten crew members have been missing.
Anna Piquer said that the US Congress must continue to push for legislative investigations into this incident and consider the possible involvement of government agencies in collaboration with private entities, given the new evidence available.
Likewise, she said it must continue to demand accountability and transparency regarding all attacks on vessels in the Pacific and the Caribbean over the past year, which have been carried out as part of President Trump’s anti-drug policy.
She said that human rights violations committed as part of these attacks—including more than 200 possible extrajudicial executions—"cannot go unpunished”.
Read more on Amnesty International here.
