Luul Dahir Mohamed, who grew up in a nomadic family in the Galgadoud region of central Somalia, like many girls in her Bedouin community, did not get the opportunity to go to school.
However, when she grew up, got 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 move from the rural community of Bergan in 2018 to Elbour in central Elbour.
However, just a few months later, Rule, 22, and Mariam, 4, were killed.
On April 1, 2018, Luul and her daughter joined several other passengers in a pickup truck heading into the town of DAC, about 11 miles (18 km) from El Buur. They were on their way to visit Ruhr’s brother Kasim when the vehicle was attacked.
“She was only there for several months (in Elbour) before being killed on a drone strike,” her brother, 38-year-old Abubakar Dahil Mohamed, told Al Jazeera.
That day, US drones bombed a pickup truck, according to media reports and Rule’s family. Shortly afterwards, locals found several bodies on and around the site. A little further down the road, about 60 meters (200 feet) away, was Ruhr’s lifeless body, clutched over a child whose small body was covered in rap shotguns.
“When they fired in the car, Ruhr made it with his daughter. They knew it was a woman and a child. And they fired again and killed both on the second strike,” Abubakar said from Mogadishu, the capital of Somali.
“Americans claim to support human rights, but apparently, their lives don’t matter when it comes to people like my sister and Nie.”
According to New America, which tracks such attacks, it has carried out more than 410 air raids in Somalia since 2005, since 2005. According to Africom’s own data, the command carried out 37 strikes in Somalia in 2018, including those that killed Luul and Mariam.
The day after the strike on April 1st, Africom issued a statement claiming it had collided with “five terrorists” and destroyed one vehicle on the strike.
“The airstrikes did not kill any civilians,” the statement said.
The US military says it is targeting armed groups targeting air force attacks, including Somali Al-Shabaab. However, local people and rights groups often report civilian deaths.
Twelve months after the attack, under pressure from rights groups, Africom conducted an internal review and admitted that “mother and child” had been killed in the attack near Elbourg.
This marked the first entry of civilian casualties from a decades-long air campaign in Somalia. The report did not have names Luul or Mariam.
This month, Humanus, a legal rights group representing civilian casualties in such attacks, received a letter from Africam, seen only by Al Jazeera, confirming that Ruhr and her daughter were killed in the US attack.
Africom “is committed to learning from the circumstances surrounding these tragic deaths,” the letter read, but said it was “not feasible” to “paying pacific dol” to Luul’s relatives, including her now 13-year-old young son.
The victim’s families and rights groups say that this is not enough.
Source: Al Jazeera
MNA/