{"id":176160,"date":"2025-09-23T11:21:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-23T11:21:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/176160\/"},"modified":"2025-09-23T11:21:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-23T11:21:10","slug":"killed-us-twice-families-of-us-drone-victims-seek-reparations-in-somalia-military-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/176160\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Killed us twice\u2019: Families of US drone victims seek reparations in Somalia | Military News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Growing up in a nomadic family in central Somalia\u2019s Galgaduud region, Luul Dahir Mohamed, like many girls in her Bedouin community, never got the opportunity to go to school.<\/p>\n

But as she grew up, married and had two children \u2013 Mohamed and Mariam \u2013 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.<\/p>\n

Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list<\/p>\n

But just a few months later, Luul, 22, and Mariam, aged four, were killed.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s older brother Qassim when the vehicle was struck.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019d only been there [in El Buur] for a couple [of] months, before she was killed in the [United States] drone strike,\u201d her other brother, 38-year-old Abubakar Dahir Mohamed, told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n

That day, according to media reports and Luul\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen 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,\u201d Abubakar said from the Somali capital, Mogadishu.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Americans claim to uphold human rights, but apparently, when it comes to people like my sister and niece, their lives don\u2019t matter.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Somalia\"A dirt road in Somalia\u2019s Galgaduud region, not far from where the strike that killed Luul and her daughter took place [Mohamed Gabobe\/Al Jazeera]Reparations \u2018not feasible\u2019<\/p>\n

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<\/a>, which tracks such attacks. According to AFRICOM\u2019s own data, the command carried out 37 strikes in Somalia in 2018, including the one that killed Luul and Mariam.<\/p>\n

A day after the April 1 strike, AFRICOM released a statement claiming it struck \u201cfive terrorists\u201d and destroyed one vehicle in the strike.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo civilians were killed in this airstrike,\u201d said the statement.<\/p>\n

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

Twelve months after the attack, following pressure from rights groups, AFRICOM conducted an internal review and admitted that a \u201cmother and child\u201d had been killed in an attack near El Buur.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

AFRICOM is \u201ccommitted to learning from the circumstances around these tragic deaths\u201d, the letter read, but said making a \u201ccondolence payment\u201d to Luul\u2019s relatives, including her young son, now 13, is \u201cnot feasible\u201d.<\/p>\n

Victims\u2019 families and rights groups say it is not enough.<\/p>\n

\"Yemen\"A woman walks past graffiti depicting a US drone in Sanaa, Yemen, in 2019. For decades, US drone attacks targeting armed groups have killed civilians in countries including Yemen and Somalia [File: Yahya Arhab\/EPA]Search for answers<\/p>\n

\u201cAFRICOM has never reached out to us directly,\u201d Abubakar told Al Jazeera, saying he tried to contact them for answers on two separate occasions \u2013 first through the \u201ccontact us\u201d section on their website to reach public relations, and later by utilising the command\u2019s civilian harm reporting portal.<\/p>\n

\u201cI even left them my contact details,\u201d he said, but he never received a response.<\/p>\n

A year after AFRICOM\u2019s internal review and its admission about civilian deaths, the command created a civilian casualty reporting<\/a> form on its website where people could share information on those killed or injured by US air raids.<\/p>\n

From a distance, the initiative seems good for filing complaints, but the move has come under sharp criticism by researchers for several reasons, including being in English, a language not familiar to most Somalis, and being impossible for civilians in al-Shabab-controlled areas, where most air raids happen, to access as the armed group puts prohibitions on internet, mobile data and smartphone use.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe current civilian complaint system is profoundly inadequate for the context,\u201d Eva Buzo, the executive director of Humanus, told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is a system that has repeatedly failed victims. In our clients\u2019 cases, they exhausted every available channel, including an online portal that is utterly inappropriate for a population with high levels of illiteracy and a lack of internet access.\u201d<\/p>\n

Abukar Arman, a Somali analyst and author who has written extensively on US drone attacks and the so-called \u201cwar on terror\u201d in Somalia, believes AFRICOM\u2019s civilian reporting portal has more to do with optics than accountability.<\/p>\n

\u201cLook at the language [English] the civilian harm reporting portal is in, and you can just imagine the hurdles and exercise in futility that many Somalis go through when attempting to report or complain about their loved ones who might have been harmed in US drone strikes,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Still, for Abubakar, trying to use the online portal was worth the effort, despite his intermediate English language skills, as he was desperate for answers about the deaths of his sister and niece.<\/p>\n

But it was to no avail. He says his messages were ignored.<\/p>\n

\"Somalia\"People walk down a street in Mogadishu, Somalia [Mohamed Gabobe\/Al Jazeera]<\/p>\n

In an email sent to Al Jazeera, AFRICOM said \u201cthose affected had representatives engage on their behalf\u201d, and the command determined that \u201cit would be more appropriate to communicate through those representatives\u201d instead of with individual queries.<\/p>\n

However, Abubakar told Al Jazeera that AFRICOM\u2019s claims were not true, as when he reached out to them in 2019 and used the civilian harm reporting portal in 2020, \u201cthere was no one representing our family with AFRICOM\u201d.<\/p>\n

Humanus took up only Luul\u2019s family\u2019s case in 2023, he said, which Buzo also confirmed.<\/p>\n

There had been \u201cpersistent and ultimately futile attempts by the victims\u2019 families to seek a response from the US military\u201d, Buzo said about Luul\u2019s case, as well as another family her organisation is representing, the Kusows.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn both cases \u2026 they exhausted every available channel \u2026 Until Humanus provided legal support, these efforts were met with silence.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018She would scream nearly every night\u2019<\/p>\n

The Kusow family has lived for generations in the Jubba Valley of southern Somalia.<\/p>\n

On the night of February 2, 2020, while preparing dinner, the family\u2019s home in Jilib was struck by a missile from a US drone. AFRICOM in a press release<\/a> initially claimed the air raid \u201ckilled one terrorist\u201d, adding that the \u201cremoval of even one terrorist makes the region and the US safer\u201d.<\/p>\n

However, AFRICOM\u2019s own internal review and investigation found that that particular strike killed one civilian and injured three others, according to another letter sent to Humanus in September, and seen by Al Jazeera, in which they named the victims.<\/p>\n

\u201cBombing people while they\u2019re having dinner, only to say they killed terrorists despite having the capabilities to determine who the targets actually are beforehand, shows their complete disregard for the lives of my family,\u201d Mohamed Osman Abdi, a relative of the Kusow family, told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n

The attack injured Mohamed\u2019s mother-in-law, 74-year-old Khadija Mohamed Gedow. After the strike, she initially struggled to walk due to her injuries. Her health has deteriorated further, and she is now unable to walk at all and has become blind in her right eye.<\/p>\n

\"Somalia\"Khadija has partially lost her vision and her ability to walk since the US strike [Al Jazeera]<\/p>\n

Mohamed\u2019s three young nieces were also casualties of the attack.<\/p>\n

Fatumo Kusow Omar, 14, suffered serious injuries to her shoulder and still struggles to pick up things five years later, Mohamed said. \u201cBut the first two years were the worst, because she was battling trauma,\u201d he added. \u201cShe had difficulties sleeping at night and would have flashbacks of the loud explosion [from the missile] and the dust, debris and fire that engulfed their home.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fatumo is yet to fully recover, he says, but feels it is his other niece, Adey Kusow Omar, who was nine at the time, who has suffered worse. \u201cShe would scream nearly every night; I tried to put her to sleep because she feared another explosion \u2026 I knew she was traumatised, but there was nothing I could do for her.\u201d<\/p>\n

A third niece, Nuro Kusow Omar, 17, was the most tragic victim that day; she was killed in the attack. At her burial the following morning, in accordance with Islamic traditions, both relatives and community members were terrified because drones were spotted hovering over the town, including over her funeral procession, causing fears that another US air raid was imminent.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t know if they\u2019d be bombed again and whether we\u2019d lose more family members,\u201d Mohamed said. \u201cIt was like reliving the nightmare, but this time, we were more scared, not knowing who could die next.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lives lost \u2018worth nothing\u2019 to the US<\/p>\n

Humanus has been advocating for both the Kusow family and Luul\u2019s relatives since 2023, trying to help them get answers as well as accountability from AFRICOM.<\/p>\n

Buzo told Al Jazeera it took intervention by the Humanus legal team just for the cases to be noticed by AFRICOM, only for them to be refused any further action.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis lack of a functional, accessible path to redress is not just a procedural flaw; it compounds the suffering of victims by silencing their attempts to seek justice,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

When it comes to the prospects for any form of reparations or financial compensation for the victims and their families, AFRICOM stated in the letters to Humanus that under \u201ccurrent Department of Defense guidelines and policies, US Africa Command determined it is not feasible to make a condolence payment in this matter\u201d.<\/p>\n

When asked for further clarification, in an email response sent to Al Jazeera, AFRICOM said it carried out an assessment bearing in mind the \u201cmission objectives, cultural norms, local economic realities; the feasibility, safety, security, and logistics of making the payment itself\u201d and made their decision based on the risk that funds meant for surviving family members could be \u201csubject to confiscation, extortion, or unofficial taxation by terrorist or hostile insurgent groups\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"Somalia\"A picture from 2008 shows a woman in the centre of Dhusamareb district, Somalia, where US forces killed an al-Shabab leader in a missile attack [File: Badri Media via EPA]<\/p>\n

In a statement published on Tuesday<\/a>, Humanus said, \u201cAFRICOM\u2019s perfunctory acknowledgment and empty condolences are not just underwhelming, they are a profound injustice. Our clients have already navigated a long and arduous process exhausting every available channel, only to be met with a system designed to look the other way.\u201d<\/p>\n

It added: \u201cReparations are not just about money; they are a formal recognition of the harm and a vital, final step toward a full stop for survivors. When this crucial component is absent, the so-called \u2018accountability process\u2019 reveals itself as little more than an elaborate exercise in futility.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mohamed and Abubakar say AFRICOM\u2019s reasoning for not paying compensation is \u201cpainful\u201d and \u201cmore injustice\u201d at the hands of those who killed their loved ones.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a cheap excuse. They killed and maimed these people [the Kusow family]. Using fears of the money being extorted or confiscated is another way of saying the lives [lost] are worth nothing to us [the US],\u201d Mohamed said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s painful and shows how desperate they are to rid themselves of any accountability.\u201d<\/p>\n

Abubakar also slammed AFRICOM\u2019s explanation. \u201cIt shows they totally are unwilling to pay and will go to extreme lengths to avoid compensation for what they did to my sister and niece,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery year, the US gives [millions] of dollars [in aid] to Somalia in different sectors, and there is never any fear of the money being stolen or being exploited by armed groups, but when it comes to us [our family], they say things like this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Additionally, in the letters seen by Al Jazeera, AFRICOM said it is unable to meet the surviving family members due to the \u201csecurity situation in Somalia\u201d and \u201cthreats to US personnel\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cSuch a claim is illogical. AFRICOM and the US in general have people [personnel] already stationed in Mogadishu,\u201d the Kusows\u2019 relative, Mohamed, told Al Jazeera. \u201cIf they wanted, they could easily meet with my family, but it\u2019s clear that they are avoiding to go before the families they hurt to avoid further scrutiny.\u201d<\/p>\n

On September 3 \u2013 the day AFRICOM wrote the letters to Humanus \u2013 General Dagvin Anderson, the recently appointed commander for AFRICOM, arrived in Mogadishu and met leadership from the Somali government and international coalition, including US officials. The AFRICOM commander would later give an interview to the Somali-run television.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf he [the AFRICOM commander] can sit down in front of cameras, then he and other [US] personnel can sit down with our family, instead of slaughtering them like animals and looking the other way,\u201d Mohamed added.<\/p>\n

\"USAFRICOM commander, General Dagvin Anderson [File: Cheikh AT Sy\/AP Photo]Culture of \u2018impunity\u2019<\/p>\n

Over the years, rights groups, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, have raised concerns about AFRICOM\u2019s lack of transparency and openness when dealing with family members of drone attack victims, as well as in investigating cases\u00a0and providing compensation.<\/p>\n

Analysts who spoke to Al Jazeera say the refusal by AFRICOM to pay compensation is part of a culture of impunity that has persisted with US drone operations in Somalia for nearly two decades.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen US authorities are unwilling to do the right thing [compensate financially] with surviving family members, it shows not only their complete disregard but how even AFRICOM themselves know they\u2019re immune from accountability \u2013 no matter how many civilians that continue to lose their lives at the hands of US drones,\u201d said Arman.<\/p>\n

AFRICOM\u2019s refusal to provide compensation \u201cis deeply disappointing\u201d to Buzo and her team at Humanus. \u201cIt reinforces the perception that seeking justice through official military channels is an incredibly difficult and often unrewarding process for victims,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

During President Donald Trump\u2019s first term in office, the US carried out more than 200 air raids in Somalia, surpassing all his predecessors combined, according to the United Kingdom-based watchdog, Airwars. This year, the US has carried out 80 air raids in Somalia, according to New America, surpassing all strikes conducted during former President Joe Biden\u2019s time in office.<\/p>\n

Abubakar and Mohamed told Al Jazeera they feel they are being forced to relive the nightmare of the attacks that killed their relatives because of the continued \u201cdisregard\u201d of the US in the handling of their cases.<\/p>\n

Mohamed believes AFRICOM does not care whether their air raids hit al-Shabab or civilians who are nothing more than \u201ccollateral damage\u201d to them, while Abubakar says the lack of concern from the US \u201cwill never bring us closure\u201d after the killing of Luul and Mariam.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe manner in which they treated our family shows the world that the American government is not genuine about upholding international law and human rights,\u201d Abubakar said. \u201cIt\u2019s like they killed us twice.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Growing up in a nomadic family in central Somalia\u2019s Galgaduud region, Luul Dahir Mohamed, like many girls in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":176161,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[1926,26643,104986,23,1127,3071,3378,4379,3,28488,21,19,22,20,25,1209,24,3439],"class_list":{"0":"post-176160","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-africa","9":"tag-al-qaeda","10":"tag-al-shabab","11":"tag-america","12":"tag-conflict","13":"tag-crime","14":"tag-features","15":"tag-military","16":"tag-news","17":"tag-somalia","18":"tag-united-states","19":"tag-united-states-of-america","20":"tag-unitedstates","21":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","22":"tag-us","23":"tag-us-canada","24":"tag-usa","25":"tag-weapons"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176160","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=176160"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176160\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/176161"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=176160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=176160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=176160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}