Drone Strikes Reported on Sheraro Displacement Camp and Adwa Hotels as Fighting Moves Across Northern Tigray

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The Pan Africa Hotel in Adwa with blown-out windows and debris in front

The damaged front of the Pan Africa Hotel in Adwa, Tigray, in a photo posted on X by AfriMEOSINT on Oct. 4, 2026. The photo could not be independently verified. (Photo: AfriMEOSINT / X)

Drone strikes and airstrikes hit a camp for displaced people in Sheraro (also spelled Shiraro) and several hotels in the historic town of Adwa over the weekend, according to aid workers and witnesses. The strikes came as fighting between the Ethiopian federal government and Tigrayan forces moved north and west of Mekelle after government forces and the allied Tigray Peace Force took the regional capital.

A bulletin circulated among humanitarian groups and seen by Reuters said airstrikes overnight into Monday killed at least nine people in Adwa, about 100 kilometers northwest of Mekelle, and eight in Sheraro in northwestern Tigray. The bulletin did not say who carried out the strikes. A second aid worker confirmed to Reuters that Adwa had been hit but had no information on casualties, and Reuters said it could not confirm the reports on its own. Spokespeople for the Prime Minister’s Office, the federal army and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) did not immediately respond to Reuters’ requests for comment. The same bulletin said Ethiopia’s military and Tigrayan forces exchanged heavy artillery fire on Monday morning close to the Tekeze River near the town of Mai Tsebri.

Other accounts differ from the bulletin, and from each other, on when the Sheraro strike happened and on how many people it killed. The strike hit a part of the camp known as Adi Abay, where people driven out of Western Tigray during the last war have been living. An aid worker told AFP that the strike, early on Sunday, killed “eight people, including a child” and seriously wounded six others. The Sheraro local government communication office gave the same toll and put the strike at about 2:30 a.m. on Sunday, the Spanish news agency EFE reported. A witness who spoke to AFP said “a mother along with her four children and one grandson were killed,” adding, “The entire family was wiped out.” An eyewitness who spoke to Addis Standard put the strike at about 2:15 a.m., in what the outlet called a Saturday night attack, and said it killed nine people, wounded 14 and hit a shelter where about 100 people were staying. “The most distressing part was that a mother was killed together with her days-old baby,” the eyewitness said. Displaced people told the outlet it was the second drone strike on the camp. Zegabi could not independently confirm the number of dead.

“We are very scared and spend sleepless nights because we fear that a drone might strike and kill us. This should end now. We are displaced and have nothing to do with anything,” one displaced person told Addis Standard.

In Adwa, a resident told Addis Standard that drones struck several places late on Saturday and into Sunday night, among them the Shewit International Hotel, and that the Pan Africa, Soloda and Segenet hotels were also reported hit. The resident said the death toll could be as high as nine and that “the people killed were all civilians,” though Addis Standard said it could not verify the figure. Residents said some people were leaving Adwa for the countryside and that shops were closed. The Brussels-based advocacy group Europe External Programme with Africa (EEPA), citing UMD Media, said in its situation report that six civilians were killed at the Soloda hotel. UMD Media’s source said the Shewit and Pan Africa hotels were also damaged but that no casualties were reported there. EEPA blamed the strikes across Tigray on the Ethiopian National Defence Force.

Photos and claims about the Adwa strikes also spread on X. On Sunday, the open-source intelligence account AfriMEOSINT (@AfriMEOSINT), which posts under the name Rich Tedd, shared photos it said showed “the aftermath of the strikes on Pan Africa Hotel (14.16567, 38.89131) and Shewit Hotel (14.16371, 38.89586).” It claimed that the “Ethiopian National Defence Forces (ENDF) carried out multiple drone strikes on hotels and public infrastructure in Adwa.” The same day, Azmera Gebrekidan (@Silas_GA), a Tigrayan activist, posted two photos and wrote that “Drone strikes targeted Shewit Hotel & Pan African Hotel in Adwa, Tigray tonight,” adding that “civilian casualties remain unspecified.” Yonas Nigussie (@Yonigussie) wrote that “Adwa has also been hit by drones five times, Segen Hotel reportedly struck three times,” and that “Gebar Shire Hotel in Shire was struck by a drone at 12:45am.” On Tuesday he posted a video he called the “Aftermath of Ethiopian Drone Strike In Adwa, Tigray.” It shows a damaged multi-story building with a blown-out ground floor and a damaged car in the street, but it does not name the hotel. The account NoorSstv (@NoorSstv) shared what it called “footage of the reported drone strike” and wrote that “Reports indicate that Soloda Hotel in Adwa was hit by a drone strike, allegedly targeting TPLF leaders.”

Other posts focused on the dead. Selam Tesfay (@SelamTe89746512) wrote on Tuesday that “A funeral was held for the IDPs massacred in Ethiopia’s drone strike on the Sheraro camp in northwestern Tigray including a mother & her five Children.” The AFP witness had described a mother, her four children and one grandson. TigraiOnline (@tigraionline) claimed on Monday that “Ethiopian fighter jets and drones carried out strikes in the city of Adwa & the town of Sheraro, killing more than 20 civilians,” and that “more than 20 civilians have been killed in the past 24 hours.” None of these posters said they were in Adwa or Sheraro, and Zegabi could not verify their photos, video or claims.

The strikes followed the fall of Mekelle, which TPLF forces left without a fight over the weekend. Residents told Reuters that daily life in the city was coming back on Monday, with shops reopening and phone and internet service returning after a week-long cut. The TPLF has said its regional administration will work from another location for now and that its forces will keep fighting from other areas.

Addis Standard reported that drone strikes have been recorded in different parts of Tigray since August, including a Sept. 20 strike on an aid truck carrying food to the Sheraro camp, and it cited the UN Human Rights Office as noting that federal airstrikes hit five schools in Tigray on Sept. 22. The fighting has also driven large numbers of people from their homes. In neighboring Afar alone, about 150,000 people were displaced from the three northern districts of Erebti, Abala and Megale, Ge’az Ahmed, the head of the Afar Human Rights Organization, told DW Amharic. The figures could not be independently verified.

The European Union said in a statement from its High Representative, distributed on Tuesday, that it is “alarmed by the continued escalation of violence in Ethiopia and heightened regional tensions, particularly between Ethiopia and Eritrea.” The bloc called for immediate de-escalation on all fronts and said that “civilians need to be protected at all times, and unhindered humanitarian access must be ensured.” It urged the parties to the Permanent Cessation of Hostilities Agreement, signed in Pretoria in 2022, to recommit to it within the African Union framework, and said outside actors should not interfere.

Sources