‘Collective punishment’: Ethiopia drone strikes target civilians in Amhara

Ethiopia’s latest conflict has intensified in recent months with a surge in drone attacks seemingly targeting civilians.

Weeks after a deadly drone attack on November 30 killed five civilians in the town of Wegel Tena in Ethiopia’s Amhara region about 570km (350 miles) north of the capital, Addis Ababa, a witness is still reeling from the trauma.

“It’s extremely difficult to even describe the scene of the aftermath,” said Gebeyehu, who requested use of his first name only for safety reasons. “Bodies were burned so badly they had turned to dust. I saw the finger bones of one of the victims still shaped as though it was still clutching a mobile phone.”

Several witnesses told Al Jazeera that a drone fired on an ambulance as it approached the Delanta Primary Hospital in Wegel Tena and obliterated it. Hospital staff, including a doctor and the ambulance driver, as well as employees from a nearby construction site died instantly.

“In Wegel Tena, there are still surveillance drones hovering over the sky. Everyone is afraid, so we avoid walking in large groups,” Gebeyehu added.

The strike was the latest in a rise in deadly drone activity in the Amhara region, where the Ethiopian army, the only operator of armed drones in the Horn of Africa country, has been engaged in an all-out war against ethnic Amhara rebels.