Ecuador has released the survivor of a US strike on a submarine alleged to have been smuggling drugs in the Caribbean.
US military forces captured the Ecuadorean national along with a Colombian citizen after they attacked the submarine the two were on. US President Donald Trump said they would be returned to their countries of origin 'for detention and prosecution'.
But the Ecuadorean Attorney General's office has said in a statement that the Ecuadorean survivor 'could not be detained' because there was 'no report of a crime that has been brought to the attention of this institution'.
The US has conducted a series of strikes on what it describes as drug-smuggling vessels in the region.
Ecuadorean officials had earlier identified one of the survivors of the strike as Andrés Fernando Tufiño. He and the Colombian man, named as 34-year-old Jeison Obando Pérez, are the first two people to survive one of the strikes the US has been carrying out as part of a massive counter-narcotics deployment.
Two other men aboard the semi-submersible were killed in the attack, according to Trump, who has said that at least 32 people have died in strikes since September.
Experts have raised concerns about the legality of these attacks, arguing they may breach international law. The Trump administration defends its operations, asserting they target 'narco-terrorists'.
Trump stated that the survivors had been on 'a drug-carrying submarine built specifically for the transportation of massive amounts of drugs', claiming the vessel was loaded with 'mostly fentanyl and other illegal narcotics'. However, experts on drug trafficking remark that fentanyl primarily enters the US from Mexico.
Approximately 10,000 US troops and numerous military assets are deployed in the Caribbean to combat drug trafficking, mainly targeting vessels leaving Venezuela.
Trump has accused Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro of leading a drug-trafficking group and confirmed sanctions on Colombia as tensions escalate.
The Colombian survivor, according to reports, is currently hospitalized in Bogotá with a traumatic brain injury.
