‘Killed us twice’: Families of US drone victims seek reparations in Somalia

Growing up in a nomadic family in central Somalia’s Galgaduud region, Luul Dahir Mohamed, like many girls in her Bedouin community, never got the opportunity to go to school.

But as she grew up, married and had two children – Mohamed and Mariam – she dreamed of a better life for them. After her marriage ended, the young mother decided to relocate from her rural community in Bergan to the central Somali city of El Buur in 2018, hoping the move would help her provide for her children.
But just a few months later, Luul, 22, and Mariam, aged four, were killed.

It was April 1, 2018, when Luul and her daughter joined several other passengers in a pick-up truck headed to the town of Dac, about 18km (11 miles) from El Buur. They were on their way to visit Luul’s older brother Qassim when the vehicle was struck.

“She’d only been there [in El Buur] for a couple [of] months, before she was killed in the [United States] drone strike,” her other brother, 38-year-old Abubakar Dahir Mohamed, told Al Jazeera.

That day, according to media reports and Luul’s family, US drones bombed the pick-up truck. Immediately after, locals found several bodies in and around the site. Further down the road, about 60 metres (200 feet) away, was the lifeless body of Luul, clutching onto her child, whose small body was covered in shrapnel.

“When they fired on the vehicle, Luul made it out with her daughter. They knew it was a woman and child, and then they fired once again, killing them both in the second strike,” Abubakar said from the Somali capital, Mogadishu.
Reparations ‘not feasible’
The Africa Command (AFRICOM), which oversees US military operations on the continent, has carried out more than 410 air raids in Somalia since 2005, according to the think tank New America, which tracks such attacks. According to AFRICOM’s own data, the command carried out 37 strikes in Somalia in 2018, including the one that killed Luul and Mariam.

A day after the April 1 strike, AFRICOM released a statement claiming it struck “five terrorists” and destroyed one vehicle in the strike.
“No civilians were killed in this airstrike,” said the statement.

The US military says its air raids target armed groups, including al-Shabab, in Somalia. However, locals and rights groups often report civilian deaths.

Twelve months after the attack, following pressure from rights groups, AFRICOM conducted an internal review and admitted that a “mother and child” had been killed in an attack near El Buur.

This marked the first-ever US admission of civilian casualties from their decades-long air campaign in Somalia. The report did not name Luul and Mariam.

This month, legal rights organisation Humanus, which represents civilian victims of attacks like these, received a letter from AFRICOM, seen exclusively by Al Jazeera, confirming that Luul and her daughter were killed in a US attack.

AFRICOM is “committed to learning from the circumstances around these tragic deaths”, the letter read, but said making a “condolence payment” to Luul’s relatives, including her young son, now 13, is “not feasible”.

Victims’ families and rights groups say it is not enough.