you don’t see them, you can hear them, you know they are there.”499 According to a strike survivor, “When the drone is moving, people cannot sleep properly or can’t rest properly. They are always scared of the drones.”500 Saeed Yayha, a day laborer who was injured from flying shrapnel in the March 17, 2011 jirga attack and must now rely on charity to survive, said: I can’t sleep at night because when the drones are there . . . I hear them making that sound, that noise. The drones are all over my brain, I can’t sleep. When I hear the drones making that drone sound, I just turn on the light and sit there looking at the light. Whenever the drones are hovering over us, it just makes me so scared.501
Akhunzada Chitan, a parliamentarian who occasionally travels to his family home in Waziristan reported that people there “often complain that they wake up in the middle of the night screaming because they are hallucinating about drones.”502
“Drones are always on my mind. It makes it difficult to sleep. They are like a mosquito. Even when you don’t see them, you can hear them, you know they are there.”
Interviewees also reported a loss of appetite as a result of the anxiety they feel when drones are overhead. Ajmal Bashir, an elderly man who has lost both relatives and - Mohammad Kausar (anonymized name), father of three friends to strikes, said that “every person—women, children, elders—they are all frightened and afraid of the drones . . . [W]hen [drones] are flying, they don’t like to eat anything . . . because they are too afraid of the drones.”503 Another man explained that “We don’t eat properly on those days [when strikes occur] because we know an innocent Muslim was killed. We are all unhappy and afraid.”504
Interview with Mohammad Kausar (anonymized name), in Islamabad, Pakistan (Feb. 26, 2012). Interview with Ahmed Jan, in Islamabad, Pakistan (Feb. 26, 2012). 501 Interview with Saeed Yayha (anonymized name), in Islamabad, Pakistan (Mar. 9, 2012). 502 Interview with Syed Akhunzada Chitan, National Assembly Member, in Islamabad, Pakistan (May 14, 2012). 503 Interview with Ajmal Bashir (anonymized name), in Islamabad, Pakistan (Feb. 26, 2012). 504 Interview with Arman Yousef (anonymized name), in Islamabad, Pakistan (Feb. 26, 2012). 499
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