Eyewitnesses Tell DW a Drone Strike Hit a Primary School in South Gondar’s Dera; Casualty Claims Conflict and Are Unconfirmed

Eyewitnesses Tell DW a Drone Strike Hit a Primary School in South Gondar’s Dera; Casualty Claims Conflict and Are Unconfirmed

October 21, 2026

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Debre Tabor, the capital of South Gondar zone, in a 2011 file photo. [file photo] [Brian Dell via Wikimedia Commons, CC0]

Several eyewitnesses told DW Amharic that a drone strike hit Sana Primary School in Dera woreda, South Gondar zone, at about 10 a.m. local time on Tuesday, while casualty figures from a command of the Amhara Fano National Movement (AFNM) and accounts on X conflict and have not been confirmed.

Residents of Dera told DW Amharic that the strike came at 4 in the morning by the Ethiopian clock, or 10 a.m. local time, and “የተለያዩ የዓይን እማኞች የድሮን ጥቃቱ ሰና አንደኛ ደረጃ ትምሕርት ቤት ላይ መፈጸሙን ለዶይቸ ቬለ ተናግረዋል” (“several eyewitnesses told Deutsche Welle that the drone strike was carried out on Sana Primary School,” in Zegabi’s translation). DW did not give a casualty figure. Others told DW that the strike hit the surrounding area rather than the school itself, and DW said the human and material damage was not known.

The AFNM statement, issued in Amharic by the public relations department of the AFNM’s Gondar Province Belay Zeleke 3rd Command and dated Tikimt 10, 2019 in the Ethiopian calendar, which is Oct. 20, 2026, said the strike came at 4:00 in the morning by the Ethiopian clock, or 10 a.m. local time and 3 a.m. ET. It blamed the federal government, opening with the line “አገዛዙ በዛሬው ዕለት በትምህርት ገበታ ላይ በነበሩ ተማሪዎች ላይ የድሮን ጭፍጨፋ ፈጽሟል!” (“The regime today carried out a drone massacre against students who were in class!”), and said students had been killed and many others had suffered injuries “ከከባድ እስከ ቀላል” (“from serious to light”). It gave no number of dead or wounded. The command said a second strike, at 5:40 by the Ethiopian clock, or 11:40 a.m. local time, destroyed the town administration office in Welesh, in Andabet woreda, also in South Gondar.

Zegabi’s X account carried the statement at 5:57 a.m. ET with a 17-second video. The earliest post about the strike that Zegabi found, from the account @Zeyede1264 at 5:40 a.m. ET, described it in English and came with a longer video. The videos show crowds of adults and children walking along a dirt path and, in the longer one, gathering near low buildings among trees. They do not show strike damage or casualties, and Zegabi could not verify where or when they were filmed. Ethio Segenet Media, which describes itself on X as a U.S.-based Ethiopian news analysis outlet, said in a long Amharic post that the footage it shared showed mothers searching in tears for their children after an air strike near a primary school in Andabet woreda, and that it had heard the classrooms of Sana Primary School in Dera were destroyed in a strike at the same hour.

Casualty figures posted on X varied widely, and none was tied to a named source. The Amhara Capacity Building Institute (@ACBI_Official), whose bio says it works on knowledge, leadership and institutional development, posted at 9:03 a.m. ET that at least 27 children had been killed. An account posting as Dehnahun Beza (@dehnahun65780) wrote at 9:24 a.m. ET that 27 students were harmed and that seven of them “passed away immediately.” An unverified account whose display name calls it the official page of the Amhara Fano supreme command, @AmharaArmy, wrote in Amharic that a “ከፍተኛ ቍጥር ያላቸው” (“large number”) of child students had been killed. Armistice Security Consult International (@ASCIsecure), which describes itself as a security risk management agency, listed the incident as an “Alleged Airstrike” in an alert at 7:21 a.m. ET and said, “Casualties remain unknown.”

The Ethiopian Gov’t had not commented on the claims by 9:45 a.m. ET on Wednesday, and Zegabi found no mention of them on the X accounts of the Government Communication Service, EBC or Fana. Abiy Ahmed was in Kenya on Tuesday for that country’s Mashujaa Day celebrations.

It is not the first report of a strike on the school. In its weekly update for Sept. 7 to 13, the Amhara Association of America said drones struck primary schools in Sana and Mecho in Dera on Sept. 7, during student registration, causing civilian casualties whose toll it could not confirm, as Zegabi reported at the time. The Amhara Advocacy Group said in a separate report that the Sept. 7 strike left the Sana Primary School building “completely destroyed.” Tuesday’s statement did not say whether classes had resumed in the same building.

The claims came on the same day the International Committee of the Red Cross said that in Amhara “continued armed violence has also affected communities, health facilities, and essential infrastructure,” and that it has supported 32 health facilities in the region. The ICRC statement did not mention Dera. It reminded all parties of their obligation to respect international humanitarian law, “particularly the rules on protecting civilians, civilian objects, the wounded and sick, and medical and humanitarian personnel.”

On X, the claims spread quickly and drew calls for an investigation. Tesfalem (@Tag_ethio) asked, “What possible military objective could justify turning a school into a place of death and terror?” Mohamed Shamseldin (@MShmseldin), whose bio describes him as a journalist and human rights advocate focusing on Africa, wrote in Arabic that “المنطقة لا تتواجد فيها أي أهداف عسكرية” (“there are no military targets in the area”). In its Amharic post, Ethio Segenet Media wrote that mothers in its footage could be heard crying “…ልጄ ልጄ…” (“…my child, my child…”). An account posting as Mr.Black (@TigrayFirst20) wrote in Arabic of “تقارير عن مقتل أطفال” (“reports of children killed”) and, in a follow-up post, called on UN human rights officials, UNICEF, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International for “تحقيق مستقل” (“an independent investigation”). Translations from Amharic and Arabic are Zegabi’s. Zegabi has not verified the claims made in these posts.

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