(MENAFN- Live Mint) (Bloomberg) -- Venezuela's ambassador to the United Nations accused the US of killing innocent people in the Caribbean, citing local reports that two of the men in the latest boat bombing were Trinidadian fishermen.

“People from different countries - Colombia, Trinidad, etc. - are suffering the effects of these massacres,” Ambassador Samuel Moncada told reporters at the UN on Thursday, while holding up the cover story of local Trinidadian newspaper Guardian on the deaths.

The comments reflect Venezuela's effort to rally international outcry over the US boat strikes, which the Trump administration has said are designed to disrupt a route used by“narcoterrorists” shipping drugs from Venezuela to the US. The bombings have ignited debate over whether the US has the right to kill people in international waters without a legal process, and with little public information about who has been targeted.

In Trinidad and Tobago, people in one fishing village told the Guardian that two local men who were supposed to return from Venezuela never showed up and lost contact - leading them to conclude that they were killed by US bombs. There's no additional evidence to support their claim, and the Defense Department, the State Department, the White House and the Trinidadian government didn't respond to requests for comment from Bloomberg.

Colombians were also killed in a recent strike, according to the country's president, Gustavo Petro. A Venezuelan told the New York Times her husband, also a fisherman, left for work one day and never came back, presumably a bombing victim. Whether the suspicions about the Trinidadian fisherman are correct or not, the mystery surrounding individuals who disappear in Caribbean waters is becoming a source of tension in the US battle against drug trafficking in the region - even in places like Trinidad where the government has been supportive of President Donald Trump's military campaign.

“Anyone who's fishing is staying very close to shore. We are not venturing far off shore,” said Gary Aboud, head of Trinidadian NGO Fishermen and Friends of the Sea.“Anyone can be murdered at any time and there's no explanation that we can get.”

Lynette Burnley said she believes her nephew, Chad Joseph, 26, was one of those killed in a US attack days ago. He'd been in Venezuela about three months and had been in constant contact with his family up until boarding a boat earlier this week, Burnley said. Since then, his family hasn't been able to reach him.

While Joseph's family assumes he was killed in the strike, no government official has been able to confirm it, Burnley added.“Everyone is worried about him and they're worried about his family here, because everyone knows each other,” she said in a telephone interview.“Nobody wants to take their boats out now - everyone is scared about what's happening out there.”

A Reuters reporter posted on social media late Thursday that the US had struck another boat in the Caribbean, and that there were survivors this time. The reporter said he was seeking more information.

The strikes reveal potential risks facing Caribbean islands getting caught up in the US offensive against Venezuela and its socialist leader, Nicolás Maduro. Some such as Trinidad and US territory Puerto Rico are providing logistical support for the massive military deployment in the region, and the Trump administration is asking others to do the same. As the White House considers escalating its offensive to targets inside Venezuela, economically vulnerable islands with longstanding ties to Caracas are increasingly uneasy over the US actions and perceptions of complicity.

Trinidadian Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar has been an outspoken supporter of the US military action. Early on, she said drug traffickers should be eliminated“violently” and rejected Colombian President Petro's call for her country to help recover the bodies of people killed in the strikes. Petro has said that Colombians were killed in a previous US strike.

Persad-Bissassar has since toned down her remarks. On the sidelines of the US General Assembly meeting in New York last month, she met with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and came away with a renewed US license to import Venezuelan gas that is critical for her nation's economy.

Calls to Trinidad's defense department and the prime minister's office weren't immediately returned. The foreign ministry didn't immediately reply to an email seeking comment, nor did the pan-Caribbean organization Caricom.

Opposition leaders in Trinidad are questioning Washington's offensive, echoing concerns expressed by US scholars and non-governmental organizations.“It is with a level of concern that I have noted reports that two Trinidad and Tobago citizens may have been killed in a military strike on a boat,” former prime minister Stuart Young said in a text message.“Whilst I am supportive of the fight against criminality and narco-trafficking I am a believer in due process of the law.”

The head of the US Southern Command, Admiral Alvin Holsey - who is stepping down at year end - visited Grenada and the twin-island nation of Antigua and Barbuda this week. Antigua and Barbuda“has no interest in hosting any military assets,” Prime Minister Gaston Browne said in an interview ahead of the visit. Grenada's government said it's considering a US request to set up a radar system at its airport.

The US military already has forward-operating positions in Dutch-controlled Curacao and Aruba.

The White House has declared that the US is in a“non-international armed conflict” with drug cartels and recently canceled diplomatic engagement with Caracas, according to people familiar with the matter. The Trump administration has a $50 million bounty on Maduro, who remains in power despite years of US sanctions that the first Trump administration ratcheted up by targeting the nation's oil industry.

Venezuela's relations with Caribbean islands run deep. Maduro's late predecessor Hugo Chavez cemented ties through subsidized oil supply and refining deals in places like Jamaica and the Dominican Republic. Informal trade and smuggling between Venezuela and the islands are brisk, according to people familiar with the relations.

The two men who were reported killed in the latest attack were well-known fishermen who never had any trouble with the law, according to a local restaurant owner, who declined to give their name for fear of being targeted by authorities. Tensions were running high in the village, the person said, as people often travel to Venezuela to trade fuel or plantains for other goods.

Aboud, the fishing leader, agreed such trips are commonplace.“Many of our boys even go to Venezuela and buy shrimp, fish, honey, wild meat, even goats, sheep and donkeys because they get orders from the farmers,” he said.

--With assistance from Magdalena Del Valle, Courtney McBride, Eric Martin, Lauren Dezenski and Alex Newman.

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