The US navy’s annual report has been criticized for excluding non-combatant deaths from its official tally
The Pentagon was accused of whitewashing US Military crimes after publishing its annual estimate of civilian casualties in 2025.
The report, submitted to Congress late Monday and obtained by US information retailers, comprises numbers which are far decrease than estimates by impartial retailers.
The Pentagon concluded that US navy operations killed 153 civilians and injured 243 final yr. All the cited casualties in 2025 stemmed from Washington’s bombing marketing campaign towards the Houthis in Yemen, whereas one other 15 stay underneath evaluation.
Nonetheless, impartial screens have reported figures considerably greater. The Airwars group has estimated that at the very least 258 civilians might have been killed through the Yemen marketing campaign, whereas the Yemen Knowledge Challenge has put the toll at 238 useless and 467 injured. The Pentagon recorded no civilian casualties from US navy operations within the Western Hemisphere, regardless of dozens of strikes on alleged drug-trafficking boats within the Caribbean and jap Pacific starting in September of 2025 – a degree of specific criticism.
Two US authorities officers cited anonymously by The Intercept rejected the Pentagon’s evaluation, with one describing the report as a “complete whitewash” and one other calling it “a f***ing joke.”
Greater than 200 folks have been killed since Washington launched its marketing campaign towards suspected drug-smuggling vessels. Round 120 died in 2025 alone, however none have been labeled as civilians within the Pentagon report.
The Trump administration has described these focused as “narco-terrorists” linked to cartels it considers terrorist organizations.
Washington has typically not launched public proof establishing that these killed aboard particular person vessels have been cartel members or that the boats have been carrying narcotics. UN specialists, authorized specialists, and several other Latin American governments have questioned the authorized foundation for the boat strikes, with critics describing them as extrajudicial killings.
The Pentagon’s newest casualty estimates mark a pointy enhance from the 2 civilian deaths acknowledged in 2024. The figures are anticipated to be even greater for 2026 as a result of ongoing US-Israeli struggle on Iran.
Iran’s authorities have already reported greater than 3,300 deaths because the battle started in February, almost half of them civilians. Amongst them are 200 youngsters, together with greater than 120 schoolgirls killed in a US strike on an elementary college in Minab on the primary day of the struggle.
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