US drones killed 4,700 people worldwide

A US senator has estimated the total number of drone attack fatalities at 4,700 people, including civilians. As many have been murdered in America’s continuing secret bombing raids the world over, Interfax reports.

This is the third time an American lawmaker speaks on the death toll of the US drone war.

“We have killed 4,700,” U.S. Republican senator Lindsey Graham acknowledged at a meeting in Easley in South Carolina on Wednesday.

“Sometimes you hit innocent people and I hate that,” he said, commenting on the use of drones by the United States.

The figure named by Sen. Graham matches the high end of a tally by the London-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism, who said the number killed in hundreds of drone strikes was between 3,072 and 4,756.

Those are the first estimates of the drone related loss of life openly cited by a U.S. official.

Washington has been using remote controlled unmanned aircraft in overseas operations since 2004.