By Bongiwe Dlamini

MBABANE:The United States Coast Guard has said it has suspended its search for survivors days after the US military said it struck two more boats in the eastern Pacific amid its ongoing military campaign in waters in and around Venezuela, Aljazeera reported on Saturday.

In a statement shared on its website on Friday, the Coast Guard said the three-day search had been focused on water “approximately 400 nautical miles [about 740km] southwest of the Mexico/Guatemala border” and had continued for more than 65 hours, but that no sightings of survivors had been reported.

US media outlets had earlier reported that the search was taking place in an area where weather conditions included “nine-foot seas, and 40-knot winds”.

The US military’s Southern Command on Tuesday said that it struck three boats travelling in a convoy in the eastern Pacific. It said three people were killed on one of the boats, but the passengers of the others jumped overboard, “distancing themselves before follow-on engagements sank their respective vessels”.

Another two people were killed in a subsequent strike on another boat, according to the military, which did not provide the location.

In both instances, the military said the boats were smuggling drugs, without providing evidence.

The attacks bring the total number of known boat strikes to 33 and the number of people killed to at least 115 since early September, according to numbers shared by the administration of US President Donald Trump.

The Coast Guard did not say on Friday how many survivors were believed to be in the water, the military had previously said it immediately notified the Coast Guard because it did not have any Navy ships in the immediate area.