Human Rights Watch Accuses Ecuadorian Forces of Abuses and Seeks Answers on Possible U.S. Role in Boat Attacks

Human Rights Watch on Tuesday accused Ecuadorian security forces of committing serious abuses against civilians during a U.S.-backed operation and raised new questions about whether U.S. personnel were involved in attacks on Ecuadorian fishing boats, allegations that go to the heart of Washington’s deepening security partnership with Quito.

The 94-page report, “A Dangerous Partnership: Abuses, Unanswered Questions, and US-Ecuador Security Cooperation,” casts the relationship as a growing oversight issue for Congress, not simply a human rights dispute inside Ecuador. Human Rights Watch said its findings point to two urgent concerns: alleged torture, arson and airstrikes during a land operation that both governments publicly described as supported by the United States, and unresolved maritime attacks and disappearances that survivors linked to apparent U.S. personnel but the Pentagon denies carrying out.

“US-Ecuador cooperation on security has been too opaque and too dangerous for Ecuadorians,” Juanita Goebertus, Human Rights Watch’s Americas director, said in a statement. “Before more harm is done, the US Congress should demand real answers and effective safeguards.”

Human Rights Watch said it interviewed 62 people and reviewed more than 100 photos and videos, along with satellite imagery, vessel monitoring data, fire-detection data, medical records and judicial documents.

One focus of the report is an operation in San Martín, in Ecuador’s Sucumbíos province near the Colombia border, between March 1 and March 6. Human Rights Watch said Ecuadorian military forces conducting joint operations with the United States burned three properties, later struck two of them with air-dropped munitions, and arbitrarily detained and tortured four dairy farm workers.

The group said its conclusions on the San Martín operation were based on witness interviews, medical records, forensic review, photos, videos, satellite imagery, property records and receipts.

Ecuador’s Defense Ministry, in a March 6 bulletin, said an operation in Sucumbíos destroyed a camp and training area used by Comandos de la Frontera, an armed group, and said it was “executed with support from the United States.” Less than two weeks later, Gen. Francis L. Donovan, the head of U.S. Southern Command, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that he had observed the Ecuador operations and described them as a “very professional execution.”

Human Rights Watch said it found no credible evidence that the three destroyed properties were tied to criminal armed groups. One, it said, appeared to be a dairy farm, while the other two appeared to have been abandoned for years.

The report also said the four detained workers had no criminal records and that prosecutors did not bring charges because soldiers failed to provide evidence against them. One detainee told researchers: “They tortured me with electricity, with a taser.”

The second major section of the report examines three incidents at sea between January and March. Human Rights Watch said the fishing boat Fiorella disappeared on Jan. 20 and that eight crew members remained missing as of the report’s publication. It said two other Ecuadorian boats were attacked in March, leaving at least four crew members seriously injured.

According to Human Rights Watch, survivors from La Negra Francisca Duarte II, attacked on March 17, and Don Maca, attacked on March 26, said their boats were hit by armed drones. Survivors also told researchers they were later detained aboard a blue-and-white vessel by armed U.S. nationals in military-style uniforms with U.S. flag insignia, then transferred to the Salvadoran Coast Guard before eventually returning to Ecuador.

Human Rights Watch said its research, including interviews with 13 survivors, indicates that U.S. authorities most likely had some level of involvement in, or knowledge of, the maritime attacks. But it also said major questions remain unresolved, including who carried out the strikes and what happened to the missing Fiorella crew.

Those allegations are significant because U.S. Southern Command has issued multiple public statements this year about “lethal kinetic strikes” on vessels in the Eastern Pacific and Caribbean as part of counternarcotics operations. Human Rights Watch did not say U.S. responsibility for the attacks on the Ecuadorian boats had been established.

The U.S. Department of Defense and the Coast Guard have denied responsibility for the attacks on La Negra Francisca Duarte II and Don Maca and for Fiorella’s disappearance. In a statement quoted in a June 11 congressional letter, the Defense Department said “the U.S. did not board the Don Maca and conducted no kinetic strikes against it.”

That June 11 letter, sent by Reps. Joaquin Castro of Texas and Bill Keating of Massachusetts, asked the secretaries of state, defense and homeland security, along with the Coast Guard commandant, for a “full accounting” of any U.S. involvement in the three maritime incidents. The lawmakers also cited urgent actions by the U.N. Committee on Enforced Disappearances regarding the missing Fiorella crew.

Human Rights Watch said it requested information from both the U.S. and Ecuadorian governments and received no response.

The report lands as President Donald Trump and Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa have expanded bilateral security cooperation, including equipment, training, intelligence sharing and direct military support. Human Rights Watch argues that without much greater transparency, that partnership risks further abuse and deeper uncertainty about what was done in both countries’ names.

For now, some of the most serious questions remain unanswered: who carried out the maritime strikes, what role U.S. authorities may have played, and what happened to the eight missing fishermen from Fiorella.