Four civilians, two women and two children, were killed and at least one other, a child, and up to six others were injured by an alleged US drone/air strike in the Sixna area of the Qandala district of Puntland on 28 January, 2025.

Those killed were from the Reer Yusuf Mohamud Salah family; amongst them were two women, Hawo Ahmed Salah and Ladan Isma’il Mumin, who were both killed.

Local authorities announced that four members of the same family were killed and six others were wounded, according to Garowe Online. KAAB TV reported that the Governor of the Qandala district, Ahmed Yusuf Mohamed Khuurshe, shared condolences for the family, but would not comment on “who owned the warplanes that carried out the airstrike”. The Somali Guardian reported that the strike was a “suspected US drone strike”. In addition, Journalist Mohamed Salh pointed out that the “fighting between the Puntland Defense Forces and the [Islamic State] group in the Bari mountains […] is part of airstrikes carried out by countries supporting Somalia in the fight against AS [Al-Shabaab] and IS”.

Journalist Mohamed Salh spoke with a relative of the family hit by the airstrike, who said that the family of 14, a family of goat and sheep herders, had just returned to their home when it was struck by a missile “dropped by a plane”, killing four members of the family – the oldest woman in the family (grandmother), her daughter-in-law, and two young boys who were her grandkids – and injuring one girl. The relative, who is a brother of the grandmother who was killed, said that after the chaos of the strike, the family reached a hospital with the injured by 9pm the night of the strike, where they were treated for their injuries. The following morning, the family, including those injured, brought the bodies of the dead to Cayngeeb village to be buried (because the village they were in was drought affected and didn’t have enough water for the burial proceedings). The relative asserted their certainty that the missile came from a plane due to the scale of the damage and the missile remnants, and added that livestock which belonged to the family was also killed.

The local time of the incident is unknown.