Civilian deaths mount as US drone strikes in Somalia escalate
NAIROBI: US forces have ‘dramatically increased’ the number of air strikes in Somalia with several civilians killed by the powerful missiles, Amnesty International said yesterday, reports denied by the military.
Amnesty calculates that there have been more than 100 strikes by US drones and manned aircraft in the past two years, more than the number of US airstrikes in Yemen and Libya combined during the same period.
Researchers who investigated five airstrikes in detail reported at least 14 civilians had been killed – raising fears the total dead in the scores of attacks may be far higher – even though the US military insists there have been no civilian deaths.
“The attacks appear to have violated international humanitarian law, and some may amount to war crimes,” Amnesty said in the report, titled ‘ The Hidden US War in Somalia’.
The study is based on 150 interviews including witnesses, family members of those killed and security experts.
Their reports were corroborated by satellite imagery, photographs of the deep craters of the explosions, as well as munition fragments collected from the sites.
US strikes, which included missiles fired by manned aircraft as well as drones, targeted Somalia’s al- Qaeda linked insurgents, al- Shabaab.
The US military said it had carried out 110 airstrikes in Somalia since June 2017, killing 800 people.
But it insisted they had all been legitimate targets as members of Al- Shabaab, and that the Amnesty report was incorrect.
“Since June 2017, AFRICOM conducted 110 airstrikes in Somalia, eliminating more than 800 terrorists,” US Africa Command said in a statement, adding that “our assessments found that no AFRICOM airstrike resulted in any civilian casualty or injury.”
AFRICOM added that it was “in the interest of the terrorist group al- Shabaab to untruthfully claim civilian casualties.”
Amnesty said it had carried out detailed investigations into five attacks, where they found that at least 14 civilians were killed. — AFP