One day in mid-September, Alejandro Carranza, a Colombian fisherman who, according to his family, had long roamed the Caribbean Sea in search of marlin and tuna, called his teenage daughter. He told him that he was going fishing and would return in a few days.
He never returned it.
The day after his departure, on September 15, his family, fellow fishermen and Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro say Mr. Carranza was killed in a U.S. military attack on his boat. Outrage about what happened to them has sparked controversy over the legality of the huge US military buildup in the Caribbean and deadly attacks on about 20 ships since September.
“I never thought I’d lose my dad this way,” Cheila Carranza, 14, said this week as she looked at a photo of him on her phone in her grandmother’s crowded home, where she lives in a single room with her mother and two siblings.
As the death toll from US attacks on boats in waters off Latin America rises, tensions are rising with Colombia, long a top US ally in the region. At least 76 people have been killed in 19 US attacks so far.
The attacks have enraged Mr. Petro, who has accused the United States of killing Mr. Carranza in an attack. President Trump responded by imposing sanctions on Mr. Petro and his family and cutting aid to the country. This week, Colombia suspended intelligence sharing with the United States until the Trump administration ends its attacks.
The Trump administration claims the attacks took place on boats carrying illegal drugs, resulting in the deaths of thousands of Americans. But many legal experts in the United States and elsewhere say the attacks violate international law because those killed, even if they were suspected of committing any crimes, posed no immediate threat.
Mutilated bodies have started washing up on the beaches of Trinidad and Tobago following US attacks in the region. The only two known survivors of the attacks are not from Venezuela, but from Colombia and Ecuador.
The Trump administration has called Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro the leader of a drug cartel and has said privately that the goal of the U.S. deployment, the largest in Latin America in decades, is to oust the authoritarian leader.
The Trump administration has not provided evidence, other than details of intelligence assessments and declassified parts of video images, that any of the ships it destroyed were carrying drugs. Also, in the case of Mr. Carranza, there is certainly no immediate ability to determine whether he was simply a fisherman or involved in drug trafficking.
Mr Petro said at a news conference last month that Mr Carranza was from a traditional fishing family but may have had occasional involvement with drugs.
Many fishermen in coastal and island communities become involved in drug transportation because poverty leaves them few options, he said.
The attacks have left Mr Carranza’s family reeling and searching for answers, providing a rare glimpse of the pressure the US deployment places on those left behind as the death toll from the deadly attacks continues to rise. The family has hired an American lawyer, who said he is preparing a legal claim.
Katrin Hernandez, the mother of Mr Carranza’s three children, refuted Mr Trump’s claim that the attack that killed her former partner as well as two other people on the same boat was targeted at “confirmed Venezuelan narco-terrorists”.
“Alejandro had nothing to do with Venezuela; he lived his whole life right here in Colombia,” Ms. Hernandez, 37, said in an interview in Santa Marta, the sun-drenched city on Colombia’s northern coast, where she met Mr. Carranza when she was 13.
Mr. Carranza, 42, also sometimes worked boating for others in the waters around Santa Marta, his family and other fishermen said, raising the possibility that the boat he was in was transporting something illegal, with or without his knowledge.
But Ms. Hernandez said Mr. Carranza had never been involved in drug trafficking. “If he was some kind of narco-terrorist,” she said, “then why are we living in misery instead of a mansion?”
Ms. Hernandez said that, despite separating several years ago, she and Mr. Carranza remained close. Until recently, she and the children lived with her parents. She said even though he rarely earned more than Colombia’s monthly minimum wage, about $382, he always put food on the table for her and the children.
Now, Ms. Hernandez said, they were surviving at the mercy of relatives who had nothing themselves. She and three children are living in her mother’s house in Gaira, a dirty area of Santa Marta far from the city’s glittering beaches.
Dan Kowalik, an American lawyer hired by Mr. Carranza’s family, said that even if Mr. Carranza had been suspected of operating a boat carrying illegal drugs, it would have been illegal to kill him.
“If the people on the boat were suspected of drug trafficking, they should have been arrested, not killed,” said Mr. Kovalik, who plans to file a lawsuit in the United States and seek damages for Mr. Carranza’s family.
The identities of the other two people on the boat remain unknown.
“This case is important from two perspectives,” Mr. Kowalik said. “First of all, the family is entitled to compensation for the loss.”
“Second, we want this case to help prevent these murders from happening again,” Mr. Kowalik said. “This is murder, and it is destroying the rule of law.”
The Trump administration did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Since Mr. Carranza left on a fishing trip two months ago, Ms. Hernandez said, her life has fallen apart.
Before the American attack, she said, she was already unable to work because her right leg was severely damaged in a motorcycle accident — near the spot on her ankle where she still has Mr. Carranza’s first name tattooed.
His 17-year-old daughter Zaira’s school fees have not been paid, he said, while his son, 11-year-old Libiston, was in shock when another child showed him a video shared by Mr Trump that apparently showed the father’s boat being torn to pieces.
Ms. Hernandez said some people had questioned whether Mr. Carranza was even murdered because his body has not been recovered. Others, he said, have tried to insinuate that he was involved in drug trafficking because of his previous run-ins with the law.
According to Colombian authorities, in a 2012 case, Mr. Carranza participated in a scheme to steal weapons seized in legal proceedings. Ms. Hernandez and Mr. Carranza’s first cousin, Edenis Manjares, 30, both said that Mr. Carranza was never jailed in connection with the case. Colombian authorities did not have further information about the nature of the case.
Leonardo Vega, 40, a longtime friend of Mr. Carranza who is a fishermen’s union leader in Santa Marta, said he was sure Mr. Carranza was killed in the Sept. 15 strike.
After seeing the attack on social media, Mr. Vega said the type of boat used in the video was exactly the same as that used by fishermen from Santa Marta, unlike boats with different designs departing from Venezuela.
“I immediately thought, ‘He’s one of us,'” Mr. Vega said. He said the destroyed boat had two motors instead of the three or four typically used on boats used to smuggle drugs or other contraband.
Fishermen may go out for a week or two, he said, often sleeping in hammocks on deserted beaches.
“But two months passed, no way,” Mr. Vega said. Given factors such as the dates of Mr. Carranza’s departure and the American attack, as well as the boat seen in the video, he said he could only reach one conclusion: “Sadly, my friend is dead.”
Mr. Carranza was known among other fishermen in Santa Marta for his easy-going personality, Mr. Vega said. He was known by the nickname “Coroncoro”, which referred to a small fish commonly found in the area, and enjoyed drinking beer and playing pool.
In addition to the problems Mr. Carranza’s family is facing, Mr. Vega said, the U.S. attacks have instilled fear among Santa Marta’s fishermen, making them reluctant to do their work.
Now is tuna season, he said, which is typically one of the most lucrative times for fishermen to be out. But fishing on land has almost come to a halt due to fear of what might await them there, he said.
Genevieve Glatsky And Simon Posada Contributed reporting from Bogotá, Colombia.