Geolocation
Airwars assessment
A US drone strike reportedly killed one civilian in Yakla, in Bayda governorate, on December 22nd 2017, according to multiple local language sources.
Tweets from news sources, including @7adramout_net, @yem_Breaking, and @yemenakhbar, suggested that the strike targeted the car of a Qat seller, killing him as he travelled through the area. No known sources suggested that he was a belligerent.
In its May 2018 annual civilian casualty report, the US Department of Defense stated that “there were credible reports of civilian casualties caused by U.S. military actions in Yemen against AQAP and ISIS during 2017”, but did not specify which specific actions these reports referred to.
Overall, the Department of Defense assessed that there were credible reports of “approximately 499 civilians killed and approximately 169 civilians injured during 2017”, as a result of US military actions in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, and Yemen.
In March 2021 in its report Death From The Sky, Mwatana added significant additional details on this event. It named the victim as father of eleven “Abdallah Ahmed Hussein Al Aameri, 47 years old, [killed] while he was driving grain and poultry from Rada’a city to Yakla village.”
The human rights organisation noted that “Mwatana found no credible indication that Abdallah was directly participating in hostilities with AQAP or IS-Y, or that he was in any way associated with these groups. His family is unaware of any investigation into the incident.”
The incident occured at approximately 4:30 pm local time.
The victims were named as:
Summary
Sources (9) [ collapse]
Media
from sources (4) [ collapse]
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Video still of Abdallah’s car after the December 22, 2017 strike in Al Bayda, Yemen. Video taken the day of the strike, received from a relative. Via Mwatana.
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Video still of Abdallah’s car after the December 22, 2017 strike in Al Bayda, Yemen. Video taken the day of the strike, received from a relative. Image via Mwatana.
Geolocation notes
Reports of the incident mention the village of Yakla (يكلا), within the Ould Rabi district (بمديرية ولد ربيع). Due to limited satellite imagery and information available to Airwars, we were unable to verify the location further. The generic coordinates for Yakla are: 14.598056, 45.060000.