The families of Chad Joseph and Rishi Samaru of Trinidad and Tobago are demanding accountability from the United States one year after the two men disappeared following a reported strike on a vessel returning from Venezuela to Trinidad and Tobago.<\/p>\n
According to a report published by UA.News citing Al Jazeera, relatives say Joseph and Samaru were killed on October 14, 2025, when a US strike hit the vessel. Four other people were also reported killed in the attack. The families are seeking answers about the circumstances surrounding the strike and the deaths of their relatives.<\/p>\n
The report states that Joseph and Samaru had been working in Venezuela to support their families. Relatives said the men called home two days before their expected return to the islands. Contact was subsequently lost, leaving their families without the answers they were seeking.<\/p>\n
In January, the families filed a wrongful-death lawsuit in federal court in Boston, Massachusetts. They are represented by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Constitutional Rights, according to the report.<\/p>\n
The families maintain that the two men were fishermen and agricultural workers, not drug traffickers. Their legal action seeks accountability for the deaths and greater clarity about the circumstances in which the vessel was targeted.<\/p>\n
The case forms part of wider scrutiny of US military operations against vessels in the Caribbean Sea and the eastern Pacific Ocean. The report describes a campaign of strikes that began in September 2025, with US authorities alleging that targeted vessels were carrying people involved in drug trafficking or what officials have described as narco-terrorism.<\/p>\n
The operations have prompted legal and human-rights concerns about the use of military force against people suspected of criminal activity. Critics cited in the report question the legality of the strikes and the evidence supporting allegations against those aboard the vessels. The report also says the US government has not publicly identified all those killed in the campaign.<\/p>\n
For Joseph and Samaru’s families, the anniversary is a reminder that key questions remain unresolved. Their lawsuit places the circumstances of the reported strike, the identification of those killed and the basis for the military action at the centre of their demand for answers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The story behind Families of Two Trinidadians Seek US Accountability One Year After Fatal<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5791,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[62],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5792","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trinidad-and-tobago"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5792","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5792"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5792\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5791"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}