Yemeni boy told of his fear of drones just months before his death
A teenage Yemeni boy who said he had dreams about drones and said he lived in constant fear of the “death machines in the sky,” was killed months later in a CIA attack, British newspaper, The Guardian has reported.
13-year-old Mohammed Tuaiman, whose father and brother had already been killed in drone strikes, told the newspaper: “I see them every day and we are scared of them.”
Speaking from Al-Zur village in Marib province last year, he added: “A lot of the kids in this area wake up from sleeping because of nightmares from them and some now have mental problems. They turned our area into hell and continuous horror, day and night, we even dream of them in our sleep.”
He was killed on January 26, when the vehicle carrying him, his brother-in-law and a third man took a direct hit.
Unnamed sources later told news agency Reuters that the strike was carried out by the CIA against a vehicle that was believed to be carrying “three men believed to be al-Qaida militants.”
Tuaiman’s older brother Maqded, told The Guardian: “I saw all the bodies completely burned, like charcoal… When we arrived we couldn’t do anything. We couldn’t move the bodies so we just buried them there, near the car.”
The Marib province is a flashpoint in the unrest between Houthi rebels and local tribes who have rejected the Shiite group’s attempts to take control.
Maqdad told the newspaper that his family had been wrongly associated with Al Qaeda and added that he would now try to clear their name. Speaking about his brother he said: “He wasn’t a member of al-Qaida. He was a kid.”
And he added: “After our father died, Al-Qaeda came to us to offer support. But we are not with them. Al-Qaeda may have claimed Mohammed now but we will do anything – go to court, whatever – in order to prove that he was not with Al-Qaida.”
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