By Jethro Mullen, CNN
(CNN) — The villagers had congregated at the tent, as they often did at the end of the workday, to sit and chat.
Among them were men who sold vegetables or wood. Others mined or traded minerals used to make alloys like stainless steel.
They were husbands and fathers, brothers and sons.
But unlike villagers who might gather like this in many other parts of the world, these men had strange company at their customary get-together.
They were living in North Waziristan, one of Pakistan’s thinly governed tribal areas that borders Afghanistan and a hotbed of militancy.
Hanging above them in the evening sky were four remotely piloted aircraft. Drones.
Without warning, the aircraft unleashed a volley of missiles that struck the tent, killing eight people.
A few minutes later, after other villagers had approached the wreckage to help the victims, the drones fired again, deepening the carnage.
By the end, 18 people were dead, including at 14-year-old boy, and 22 others were wounded, including an 8-year-old girl.
“Body parts were scattered everywhere. Bodies without heads and bodies without hands or legs,” said Ahsan, a miner and local resident who had been praying at the time of the first wave of missiles.
‘Will I Be Next?’
Ahsan’s account of the attack in the village of Zowi Sidgi in July 2012, along with those of other witnesses and victims’ relatives, forms part of a report released Tuesday by Amnesty International titled “‘Will I Be Next?’ U.S. Drone Strikes in Pakistan.”
Categories: Americas