Answer:
He believes they didn't survive
Explanation:
What Uncle infers from this is that Salva's family did not survive the attack.
This was taken from the story, A Long Walk to Water. Uncle was in the army and he had a gun. He was seem as a leader. Going down the story, Uncle had difficulty speaking to Salva and he wore a solemn look. This goes to show that something bad had happened and he was about to deliver a difficult news to Salva about his family