Fish­er­men and sea­men are be­ing urged to stay close to the shore amid fears of be­ing bombed by the Unit­ed States mil­i­tary, which con­tin­ues its an­ti-nar­cotics op­er­a­tions in the Caribbean Sea.

The warn­ing fol­lows the deaths of two lo­cal fish­er­men, Richie Sama­roo and Chad “Char­po” Joseph, who were among six peo­ple re­port­ed­ly killed when the US bombed a small ves­sel it claimed was car­ry­ing nar­cotics in in­ter­na­tion­al wa­ters ear­li­er this week.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Fish­er­men and Friends of the Sea cor­po­rate sec­re­tary, Gary Aboud, said the men were most like­ly trans­port­ing food or live­stock for sale or tran­ship­ment. He con­demned Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and her Gov­ern­ment for pre­vi­ous­ly sup­port­ing US mis­sile strikes on sus­pect­ed drug ves­sels.