Ethiopia: We knew a massacre had taken place. But we did not know where – until now
In February, somewhere in northwestern Ethiopia, more than 30 civilians were killed in a drone strike. But amid official denials it was impossible to pinpoint where. Until now.
In February, somewhere in northwestern Ethiopia, more than 30 civilians were killed in a drone strike. But amid official denials and the fog of an underreported war, it was impossible to pinpoint the location of the massacre. After an exhaustive investigation, The Continent can tell war crimes investigators exactly where to look.
The camera pans over a gruesome mangled mess of blood, limbs and bodies as wailing voices console each other and discuss how to dislodge dismembered human remains from the wreckage of an obliterated Isuzu truck.
The horrific footage, far too graphic to publish in its entirety, surfaced undated and unverified on the web earlier this year. Anonymous uploaders claimed it depicted the aftermath of a deadly drone strike in Ethiopia’s northwestern Amhara region on 19 February. The strike killed at least 30 civilians.
“They wiped us out,” said one survivor, who lost seven relatives in the attack and later helped to transport their bodies. “They had been dancing and celebrating just a few hours before. Then we had to collect their bodies piece by piece. I haven’t felt alive since that day.”
The survivor confirmed that the attack came from an unmanned aerial vehicle, more commonly known as a drone. “There were two drones we saw that day. One was a dark coloured one with a low roar. This was the one that attacked. But there was another one, a surveillance drone which had a lighter shade and a red flashing light, as if it was recording us.”
Initially, it was difficult to confirm accounts of the massacre.
As the conflict between the state and the rebel Fano militia has intensified, the government has denied journalists access to the region and imposed significant restrictions on mobile communication.
The army denied that any civilians had died, describing the incident as an army operation that led to the killing and capture of rebel militants.
The army’s version of events was contradicted just days later when the first media reports emerged, notably in the Addis Standard and on BBC Amharic.
These reports included harrowing eyewitness testimony. The dead were from only three or four families. An infant who had just been baptised survived, but seven of his relatives were killed – some still wearing their white ceremonial dress. Other bodies were too mangled to properly identify.
But there was one detail on which the media reports did not agree – the exact location of the massacre. Addis Standard said it happened in Sasit, a small town north of Debre Birhan.
The BBC located it at “Fela Megenteya”, which loosely translates as “Fela Turn” – an informal name that does not appear on any maps. Some activists said it was in another, slightly larger town, called Sela Dingay.
All of these locations are found in the same district, within 30km of each other.
But no one had exact co-ordinates for where the strike occurred.
This is important for two reasons. Symbolically, it is difficult to honour the dead when we don’t even know where they were killed. And practically, it is much harder to collect evidence of war crimes when we don’t know where to look.
Pinpointing the massacre
The drone strike was only the latest in a string of deadly drone strikes since the outbreak of war, in August 2023, between the Ethiopian army and ethnic Amhara rebels known as the Fano. More than 300 civilians have died in at least 31 drone strikes in Amhara in the past year alone, according to reports collated by the Armed Conflict Location and Events Database.
The Ethiopian national army and the Fano militia are former allies who together fought against rebels from Tigray, another region in northern Ethiopia, from 2020 to 2022.
They fell out after Fano militants were ordered to disarm and disband, following the signing of a peace treaty in Pretoria that ended the war on Tigray.
Instead, Fano fighters remobilised and captured a slew of towns across their home region in August 2023. The federal troops deployed to crush them have struggled to contend with Fano’s familiarity with the terrain and the wide support they enjoy among the locals.
The federal army has been repeatedly implicated in human rights abuses against civilians in the region.
A previous visual investigation by The Continent, a little over a month into the conflict, geolocated footage of Ethiopian army extrajudicial killings of civilians to an area near a police academy in the Amhara town of Debre Markos.
In the initial video footage of the February drone massacre, there was not enough visual evidence to conclusively geolocate the attack.
This changed when additional images – 12 photographs and a 65-second video clip – were delivered to The Continent by Misganaw Belete, a lawyer and human rights advocate who was based in the Amhara capital Bahir Dar, and worked with a team to compile evidence of war crimes across the region.
... there was not enough visual evidence to conclusively geolocate the attack. This changed with additional images – 12 photographs and a video clip – that were delivered to The Continent
“Unfortunately, the war in Amhara is underreported,” said Misganaw. “The world’s focus is elsewhere. By compiling evidence today, we may assure that accountability and closure for victims may be obtained tomorrow.”
By authenticating the new evidence and analysing open-source documents and satellite imagery, The Continent successfully geolocated the massacre to a specific four-way intersection between villages in the rural Amhara North Shewa Zone, some 220km northeast of Addis
The big clue came in the footage provided by Misganaw, which showed bodies in clearly discernible civilian attire. In the background, two connected transmission towers are visible a few hundred metres apart, parallel to the wreckage of the truck. There is a village in the distance. The attack appeared to have happened at an intersection of two roads.
Publicly sourced documents, including a 2022 village assessment study produced by the International Organisation for Migration, lists a village by the name of Fela, with precise coordinates.
On Google Earth – which erroneously names this location as “Jingodo” – a fourway intersection is clearly visible leading into the village, with the transmission towers in the background.
The visual evidence is consistent with eyewitness descriptions of “Fela Turn”, making this overwhelmingly likely to have been the site of the drone massacre.
The site’s coordinates are 9°56’10.7”N39°25’06.9”E. When war crimes investigators are finally able to access Amhara, this is where they can begin to collect evidence.
“The only language they understand is force. From now on we will talk to them in that language”
Ethiopian government spokesperson Billene Seyoum did not respond to an emailed request for comment.
Last week, the Ethiopian army announced plans for a major new offensive against Fano militias in Amhara, claiming that efforts to find a peaceful resolution have failed.
“The only language they understand is force. From now on we will talk to them in that language,” said army spokesperson Colonel Getnet Adane.
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