The families of two missing men from the Caribbean country of Trinidad and Tobago have marked the one-year anniversary of their disappearance by calling for accountability from the United States. Since September last year, the US military has undertaken a campaign of attacking small boats in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean, on the basis that they were transporting “narco-terrorists”. But critics have called the boat strikes an illegal campaign of extrajudicial killings.
On Wednesday, the families of Chad Joseph and Rishi Samaroo issued a statement remembering the two men, who they said were killed in one of the US boat strikes on October 14, 2025. The families are currently pursuing a wrongful death lawsuit in the state of Massachusetts, supported by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). They have argued that Joseph and Samaroo were fishermen and farm workers, not drug-traffickers.
Chad was the heart of our family. He was loving, generous and caring and always there for us. We all miss him terribly,” said Joseph’s mother, Lenore Burnley.
We will always mourn losing Chad but hope that this lawsuit will be a step towards justice for him and the family.” Four other people were killed in the attack on October 14, 2025, when a missile struck a vessel returning to Trinidad and Tobago from nearby Venezuela. The families have said Samaroo and Joseph had been working in Venezuela to support their families. Both men called their families two days before embarking on the trip home to the islands.
They were never heard from again. The boat strike campaign, launched under US President Donald Trump, has killed at least 239 people since September 2025. But the US government has provided little evidence to prove its claims that those on board were trafficking drugs.
It has also not publicly identified the victims. In several cases — from Colombia to Ecuador to Trinidad and Tobago — relatives have stepped forward to say that their loved ones were among those killed, and that they were fishermen with no connection to the drug trade. Separately, the family of Colombian fisherman Alejandro Carranza has filed a complaint with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, accusing the Trump administration of violating his right to life when it allegedly bombed his boat on September 15, 2025.
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