Thread: Today @amnesty, we release details of 2 US military airstrikes in #Somalia in Feb that caused five civilian casualties. Both took place in Jilib, the 1st on 2 Feb, the 2nd on 24 Feb. In both, AFRICOM said it killed terrorists. Our findings differ. amnesty.org/en/latest/news… 
On 2 Feb, at 8pm, a family of 5 was sitting down to dinner in Jilib town, a US airstrike hit their home. Nurto Kusow Omar, an 18-year-old girl was killed on the spot. Her 2 younger sisters, Fatuma & Adey, aged 12 and 7, & their grandma, Khadija Mohamed, aged 70 were injured.
On 24 Feb, a US Hellfire missile hit the Masalanja farm outside of Jilib town, killing 53-year-old Mohamud Salad Mohamud who was the Jilib office manager of Hormud Telecom, a banana farmer & a prominent businessman. He left behind a wife and eight children.
We interviewed the victims’ relatives, eyewitnesses, colleagues, clan elders; analysed satellite images, photo & video evidence from the scene of the strikes; my colleague @Brian_Castner identified the US munitions used. We found no evidence linking the individuals to Al-Shabaab.
AFRICOM was initially quick to issue statements saying they killed one terrorist in each of the strikes but when we wrote to them in late March, they said "assessments from these two airstrikes are still open and are being examined..." We hope they will get it right this time.
Out of the 176 airstrikes AFRICOM conducted in #Somalia since April 2017, we investigated 9. We found 21 civilians were killed & 11 injured. The April 1 2018 Elbur case is the only 1 AFRICOM admitted to have killed civilians but a year later, no reparation for the family.
The two Feb air strikes were among a string of 20 retaliatory attacks US forces carried out in #Somalia after an Al-Shabaab assault on a US airbase in Manda Bay, Kenya, that killed a US soldier and two contractors, and destroyed five aircraft. militarytimes.com/news/your-mili…
Nothing can excuse flouting the laws of war. Any US or Somalia government response to Al-Shabaab attacks must distinguish between fighters and civilians and take all feasible precautions to avoid harm to civilians. amnesty.org/en/latest/news…
The US military should not be allowed to continue to paint its civilian victims in #Somalia as ‘terrorists’ while leaving grieving families in the lurch. Much more must be done to reveal the truth & bring justice & accountability for US attacks which killed many Somali civilians.
