At least one civilian, a woman, was killed and up to seven other civilians, including five children, were injured alleged US drone strikes or Kenyan airstrikes on the town of Ceel-Cadde in the Gedo region on June 2-3, 2021.

Halgan Media reported that suspected US drones or Kenyan fighter jets carried out strikes on a home in the Al Shabaab controlled town of Ceel-Cadde that left 5 children wounded and killed their mother. Local contacts provided the name of the woman killed: Sahro Adan Warsame. Halgan Media also added that her five children survived but were in critical condition and that four civilian homes were destroyed in the town of Ceel-Cadde.

Ali Ahmed Sheikh, the woman’s husband, told Reuters on Monday he had been out of the house when the warplane struck his family home in El Ade and that of a neighbour on Thursday night. “I found my house destroyed, my wife Sahra Aden and the baby she suckled dead,” Sheikh told Reuters from Erdogan Hospital in the Somali capital Mogadishu. He was there attending to his children – two boys and two girls – who were injured in the attack. He said that in the raid, the Kenyan planes had also bombed other villages and destroyed telecommunications masts of Hormud Telecom, a Somali telecoms firm.

Horn Observer put the casualty toll at two civilians killed, a mother and her child, and seven other civilians wounded in the airstrikes in the Gedo region. Somali officials said, as quoted by the media, that 6 children who were wounded in June 3rd airstrikes by Kenyan Defense forces in Gedo region were airlifted to Mogadishu, all of them under 12 years old.

Bloomberg quoted Somalia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who accused Kenya of carrying out the attacks, stating that “is the most recent example of Kenyan Defence Force operations resulting in the death and maiming of civilians, including women and children, that are increasingly becoming an unpleasant hallmark of the Kenyan Air Force’s standard operating procedure” and adding that they would be presenting their concerns to the African Union.

Sources were conflicted as to whether the US or Kenya was responsible for the airstrikes.