A strike reportedly hit a village outside Marka, a city around 60 miles south of Mogadishu, according to a field investigation by a reporter for The Nation. There were no reports of immediate civilian harm, though a man reportedly died of a heart attack following the violence.

Airwars has placed this event in a date range from July 22nd-27th 2019, reflecting limits to current reporting.

Khadija Hassan Ali, a mother of three, spoke to the reporter Amanda Sperber: “Ali said that her husband, Abdullahi Sheikh Hassan, died in late July from what she believes was a heart attack after night-time strikes hit her village amid fighting between Al Shabab and government-led militias. She is certain of the timing because, in Somali culture, a wife formally mourns for four months and 10 days after the death of her husband, so she had the dates in mind when I talked with her in late November.”

The only strike that US Africa Command claim to have conducted in late July was around 50 kilometres north of Kismayo on July 23rd – which Airwars has recorded separately. However as Sperber notes, Kismayo is over 400km away from Marka.

According to the article, an international human rights organisation additionally leaked a document to the reporter that indicated a strike occurred on July 25th in Qalimow, but this is about 95 miles away from Ali’s home. This event also has its own entry.

The US was thought to be the only country conducting airstrikes in this region of Somalia at the time. Sperber suggests that the strike may not match AFRICOM’s records because it could potentially be a CIA strike.

The incident occured during the night.