African armies turn to drones

THE Easter period usually offers a rare respite in Gedeb, in Ethiopia's deeply troubled north, but on April 17 death rained from the skies in this sleepy town caught up in a war between rebels and the army.

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On this important holiday for Ethiopian Orthodox and Protestant Christians, many families had gathered in the morning to repair the local primary school.

But out of the blue, shortly before 11am, “a drone fired on the crowd and pulverised many people right in front of my eyes’, a resident said.

Ethiopia and many other African nations are increasingly turning to drones as a low-cost means of waging war, often with mixed military results but devastating consequences for civilian populations.

Last year, Ethiopia carried out a total of 54 drone strikes, compared to 62 attacks in Mali, 82 in Burkina Faso and 266 in Sudan, according to data collected by the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED), a US-based monitor.

According to one of two Gedeb residents, the strike killed “at least” 50 people, and according to the second, more than 100 - a figure corroborated by several local media outlets.

It is one of the deadliest in a series of drone attacks since the conflict began in August 2023, pitting the Ethiopian army against the Fano, the traditional “self-defence” militias of the Amhara ethnic group.

A shoe seller at the scene, whose nephew was killed instantly, also blamed an armed drone that continued to “hover in the air” some 20 minutes after the strike.

“The sight was horrific: there were heads, torsos and limbs flying everywhere and seriously injured people screaming in pain,’ he recalled.