Citing a federal memo that it aims to keep concealed from the public, the Trump administration claims to be at war with drug cartels and that the killings in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean are justified. Legal experts and human rights advocates argue the bombings are at least war crimes, if not outright murder.

Sunday’s strike was the administration’s first confirmed boat bombing since Ben Saul, the United Nations special rapporteur on human rights and counterterrorism, said last month that even if the targeted vessels were engaged in drug trafficking, there are no “international legal rights to unilaterally use military force” to counter cartels.