A Pakistani family affected by US drone strikes, appeared before members of the US Congress to record their account from when they were targeted last year.
Rafiq ur Rehman a primary (elementary) teacher in North Waziristan and his children Zubair (13) and Nabila (9) are the first victims of the covert drone programme to give evidence in person to members of Congress. The children’s grandmother – Mr Rehman’s mother – Mammana Bibi (67) was killed in a CIA strike in October 2012.
The family was accompanied by Jennifer Gibson, an attorney with the human rights charity Reprieve.
Rehman’s son Zubair, 13, said that the “US drone took my grandmother’s life.”“Our children now do not want to go to school, they even fear to play outside, we live in a constant fear. Before drone campaign started, we were busy in our own lives.”
Replying to a question Rehman said when his mother died in the drone strike, the neighbours “told me that see what US has done to your mother, you should hate US.”
Media reports afterward confirmed a drone strike took place, but said missiles hit a house, with one version alleging a car was struck and several militants killed.
But the Rehmans said no building or car was directly hit in the attack, and that paved roads are some distance away. They say missiles landed in the field where their grandmother was teaching Nabila how to recognize when okra are ripe enough to pick.
After a loud boom, "where my grandmother was standing, I saw these two bright lights come down and hit her," said Nabila. "And everything became dark at that point."
She noticed blood on her hand and tried to wipe it away with her shawl. "But the blood just kept coming," she said.
Shrapnel lodged in her right hand and she was treated at a local hospital. Her brother, Zubair, suffered shrapnel wounds to his left leg, which required two operations. His family had to take out a loan to pay for the surgery.
Since the attack, Zubair said he has trouble sleeping and no longer goes outside to play cricket.
"I don t feel like going outside and playing with my friends. I don t feel like going to school. It s really destroyed my life," he said.
His sister said the US government's explanation for drone strikes did not apply to her family.
"When I hear that they are going after people who have done wrong to America, then what have I done wrong to them? What did my grandmother do wrong to them?
"I didn t do anything wrong," she said.
The Rehman family s experience features in a new documentary, "Unmanned: America s Drone Wars," which takes a critical view of the air strikes.
