Unexploded Ordnance From an Abandoned Arms Depot Killed Eight in Tigray’s Yechila, Families and Hospital Tell BBC

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Eight people, among them children as young as two, were killed in the Tigray town of Yechila when unexploded ordnance that residents had carried from an abandoned arms depot to sell as scrap metal blew up outside a family home, relatives, residents and the head of the local hospital have told BBC Tigrinya.

The blast happened on Tuesday, Oct. 27, in the Ma’arey neighborhood of Yechila, the main town of the Abergele Yechila district in Central Tigray, as people who collect scrap metal were bringing a load on donkeys from the Ariqua depot to the buyers who work out of homes in the town, the BBC reported on Monday. Erdey Assefa, who runs Yechila hospital, told the BBC that 18 people were hurt, that three died before they could reach the hospital and that “15 victims came to our hospital, and two of them died before any treatment could be given.” He said the hospital sent 10 badly wounded patients on to Ayder Referral Hospital in Mekelle and to Abiy Addi hospital, people “whose hands and legs were cut off and whose bellies were struck” by the blast, and that three of them died there, one within 20 minutes of reaching Mekelle. Five children who were playing at the door of their homes were among the dead, he said, aged three, five, six and 12. Residents said the five donkeys that carried the ordnance also died. Wazema Radio, citing humanitarian workers and residents, reported on Oct. 29 that 10 people, including four children, were killed when unexploded ordnance blew up in the town, giving the date as Oct. 28.

Adugna Gebremedhin lost his son, who was two years and two months old, and his nine year old son was wounded in the eye, neck and leg and is being treated at Abiy Addi. “It was the area where the children play in their neighborhood,” he told the BBC. “We rushed to Abiy Addi hospital in a panic. I came back from Abiy Addi carrying my child’s body.” A priest whose six year old daughter was killed told the BBC that his eldest daughter, who had recently started buying scrap metal, refused the load when it arrived. “They had brought iron that had not been fired, loaded on donkeys. She told them, ‘This has bullets in it, I won’t buy it.’ In the middle of that, it got too heavy for the donkey, fell at the door of our house, and went off,” he said. His wife, his son, his eldest daughter and her three year old son were badly hurt and taken to Ayder. “Some of them were hurt inside the house when the blast cut through the door and came in. Many people were hurt; there are many dead and wounded,” he said. The head priest of the district, Gebrehiwot Alene, said, “We buried five people in a single day,” and that eight of the dead were buried at Kidane Mihret Cathedral.

The Ariqua depot, north of Yechila, was used to store weapons by Tigray’s forces and the former administration led by the TPLF and was guarded by local militia and security forces, the BBC said, and residents describe it as dating back to the war between Ethiopia and Eritrea. After fighting broke out between Tigray’s forces and the federal army and its partner, the Tigray Peace Force, the district administration and its security forces left the area, and the militia guarding Ariqua left the weapons behind on Oct. 22 “and went to the bush,” according to the BBC’s sources. Large numbers of people from Yechila and from nearby Emba Israel and Saharti Samre then went to the depot to pull out metal and sell it to informal traders in the town. Satellite images from Planet Labs reviewed by the BBC show heavy explosions and fire at the depot on Oct. 22 that destroyed most of it by the next day. Sources told the BBC that people had begun taking apart unexploded shells as well as spent metal and that this was said to have caused the Oct. 22 fire, a cause the BBC said it could not confirm on its own. The area is now under the control of the Ethiopian National Defense Force, the BBC said, and there is no formal local administration, because the caretaker administration that Abiy Ahmed set up for Tigray has not yet reached the district.

Gebrehiwot said elders and religious leaders had warned people again and again to stay away from the depot, without success. “People we met in person would tell us, ‘We said let us die while eating. Do you think we don’t know this?’” he said. He said that on Oct. 26 community leaders asked the federal soldiers in the area to keep people out, that the soldiers tried to turn people back “even trying to beat them,” and that people refused. He said the beating took on a political color and that the soldiers then stopped, telling them, “We want to save the people, but we do not want to be blamed for something we did not do.” The blast came the next day. Gebrehiwot said the area had been hit by drought as well as war and asked everyone who could to help. Erdey said the price of scrap had fallen from 50 birr a kilogram to 15 as more people brought it in, so many were keeping it at home to sell later. “This explosive is stored in individual people’s houses,” he said. “Each person has put fire in his own house.” He asked aid groups, the current administration and others to remove the weapons left at the depot or guard it properly, and to search house to house for unexploded shells, because frightened families were now throwing suspect items outside, where children could find them and play with them.

Wazema Radio reported that deaths from landmines and unexploded ordnance were rising in Tigray after international groups, including the United Nations Mine Action Service, halted demining and risk education when renewed fighting between federal troops and Tigray’s forces broke out last month, and that drought and lost livelihoods were pushing people to take apart abandoned weapons for scrap.

People from the area had been warning about the depot on X for days, though Zegabi could not confirm their figures. Yirga Alemu (@RTigrai2023), who describes himself in his bio as a “sociologist| researcher| writer,” wrote on Oct. 23 that “because of drought induced humanitarian crisis civilians are risking their lives to collect scrap metals to survive,” and that apart from the casualties of the day before, “10 people have reportedly been killed by landmines in the Yechila Abergele.” On the day of the blast he wrote that “unexploded explosives remain in the area and people are taking them to their homes.” An account under the name Abrha_M (@Abrha_MG), whose bio lists “#Tigray” and “Economics by Training,” wrote later that day that six children had been killed and called on local and international aid groups to help clear the Ariqua depot, “which is totally abandoned by all forces.” Romhai (@Romhai_H) wrote that “unexploded devices still litter the area” and that “people are even taking them home.” When the depot first went up on Oct. 22, an account under the name Daniel Daba (@dany_daba) wrote in Amharic that the “bomb and ammunition storage depot” that “the Shabia-hired terrorist Debretsion group buried and left in the Ariqua Yechila area has completely exploded” and “has been completely put out of use.” Zegabi’s searches in Tigrigna found no other posts on the Oct. 27 blast.

Sources