Manta, Ecuador - Ecuadorian fishermen who were attacked by the US military while at sea opened up about the trauma of being forcibly detained alongside their crew mates.
Ecuadorian fisherman Eduardo Holguin was aboard the "Conquista 2" when a joint US-Ecuadoran operation forcibly removed him alongside his crew mates and then sank the vessel in front of their eyes.
The 41-year-old told AFP he and his crew mates had nothing to do with drug trafficking. Despite that, a speedboat "full of soldiers" pulled up and pointed weapons at them.
"That's when the ordeal began for us," Holguin said. "They took our boat away, brought us to the patrol boat, and blew it up."
Joint US-Ecuador operations in the Pacific, undertaken under the guise of counternarcotics, have seen the destruction of at least four Ecuadoran vessels since August 28.
The US military's Southern Command claimed the boat was used to support drug trafficking by Ecuadoran crime syndicate Los Choneros.
Holguin said once he and the crew were detained on the patrol boat, there was an interpreter and "gringos." Then "they put a hood over my head" and "earmuffs."
He explained that he and his crew mates were given food, but "with everything that was happening, we didn't feel like eating."
The crew members were then handed over to the Ecuadoran navy, which transported them to Manta, the main fishing port in southwestern Ecuador. After arriving on land, the crew was taken to a police station and released a day later without charges.
For Juan Carlos Posligua, a crew member on the "Conquista 2," the days since have been hard.
"I haven't slept or eaten for three days," he said. "We weren't doing anything illegal. We're just ordinary fishermen who went out to work to bring home our daily bread," Posligua said.