Ethiopian forces killed around 40 fighters from their own camp in a drone strike in the insurgent Amhara region on January 15, a nurse and a local official told AFP on Tuesday.
Amhara, Ethiopia's second most populous region**’* with around 23 million people, has been gripped by an insurgency since April 2023, after the federal government attempted to disarm local ethnic militias Fano.
The army regularly conducts drone strikes, but that of January 15 in the Waghemira area affected a pro-government camp, the local official told AFP by telephone, on condition of anonymity.
According to him, the army informed the authorities the next day that it was a "error", although the drone flew over the camp for some time before the strike.
"I immediately saw smoke and flames... I rushed to the scene... I saw body parts of the dead as well as the injured dying of pain", he said, adding that 36 people were killed instantly and two others died in hospital.
A caregiver who treated several injured people on site, Abebaw Zinabu, told AFP that "more than 40" people had been killed.
"How can an attack be carried out by our own forces against a well-known camp, which for six years has housed members of the militia defending the government, fighting in the desert and valleys, far from their families and loved ones?", asked the manager.
An army spokesperson told AFP he did not have "information receipt" about the incident.
Ethiopia is facing several insurgencies, particularly in the Amhara and L’ regionsOromia, as well as growing tensions with neighboring Eritrea.
According to ACLED, a conflict watchdog, at least 669 people have been killed in more than 70 drone strikes in Amhara since 2023.
