On June 15th 2012, up to seven civilians, including a woman and up to six children, were killed by an alleged US military, CIA drone, or Yemen Air Force strike in the village of Shaqra, Ayban province. Four civilians were injured and no militants were killed according to witnesses.

The village of Shaqra, near Jaar, was hit by an alleged US military, CIA drone strike, or Yemeni airstrike that killed seven civilians – six children and one woman – according to a July 2013 investigation by human rights organisation Alkarama and reports by National Public Radio (NPR).

The Swiss-based NGO, Alkarama, reported four houses were hit in the strike. They had been used temporarily by armed groups before the attack. It was “not clear whether the Yemeni air force launched the strike, or whether it came from a US military or CIA drone.”

NPR told the Bureau of Investigative Journalism the strike came after Friday prayers. Ali al Armoudi survived the strike and told NPR his four-year-old son and 6-year-old daughter “died in his arms on the way to the hospital.”

A Yemeni soldier accompanied a NPR reporter in Yemen. “‘You should come and take a picture of the houses. Children were killed, people were killed,’ one Yemeni civilian says.
I look at a soldier and ask, ‘Like a bomb coming from the air?’ He says yes. The soldiers won’t take us to the site of the bombing. But we later confirm that there was an airstrike in Shaqra that killed six children and one woman the day before we visited. It’s still not clear whether the Yemeni air force launched the strike, or whether it came from a U.S. military or CIA drone.

A second NPR report published on July 6th says: “A man named Ali Al Amoudi lets out a sigh as he tells us how the strike hit his house and three others just a few weeks ago in the town of Shaqra, just down the road from Jaar. His 4-year-old son and 6-year-old daughter were hit. They died in his arms on the way to the hospital. Four other children and one woman died that day. No militants were killed, according to witnesses. Amoudi says the strike was fate. ‘What can we do?’ he says. ‘All justice is from God.'”

Local residents in the neighbourhood told Aden Al-Ghad that a warplane fired missiles at the house of the citizen “Hadi Imbat”, which was located behind the fish factory in Al-Bandar neighbourhood. The raid resulted in the injury of the citizen “Hadi Embat” and the killing of his wife and two of his daughters while they were in the house. The air strikes also hit a house next to a person called “Al-Moawadi.”

According to the local news source Aden al-Ghad, inhabitants of Shaqra were prevented from leaving the city and forced to return by Al Qaeda militants days before the strike. A few days before the strike, armed groups had withdrawn from the Arqoub Mountains and were taking shelter in Shaqra, one of their last strongholds, reported Aden Al-Ghad.

The incident occured around midday.