Satellite image of the military section of Bahir Dar Airport showing excavation around drone shelters, posted October 26, 2026. Image: satellite image shared by @AfriMEOSINT via X
Satellite images posted Monday by the open-source analyst @AfriMEOSINT show new excavation around the shelters at Bahir Dar Airport that house Akıncı attack drones, the analyst said.
"Extensive activity is visible in the military section of Bahir Dar Airport," the post said, "with excavation around shelters housing UAE-operated Akıncı UCAVs." Further work north of the runway, it added, may mean that a smaller drone shelter is under construction.
The Akıncı is a large Turkish-made combat drone that can carry guided bombs and missiles and stay in the air for many hours. The analyst describes the Bahir Dar aircraft as operated by the United Arab Emirates, a claim that Mereja could not verify and that neither the Ethiopian nor the Emirati government has confirmed. Ethiopia's Government has never published details of its drone fleet, and it does not comment on where its drones are based.
Bahir Dar is the capital of the Amhara region, and its airport is the closest major military airfield to the fronts in Gojjam, Gondar and Wollo, where the federal army has been fighting Fano since August 2023. Drone strikes have killed civilians across the region in that time. In the past week alone, residents told DW Amharic that two people were killed by a drone strike in the town of Wurgessa in North Wollo, that people were killed in a strike on Sanka kebele in Guba Lafto woreda, and that another strike hit Dera woreda. Fano units have repeatedly complained on X of drones flying over their areas, including over a public gathering held in Meragna in Shewa on Monday, according to posts by @kenyaaxis and @Geteriew1.
Ethiopia and the UAE are close partners, and the Emirates is one of the Ethiopian Government's most important sources of investment and financial support.
The UAE claim is not new. Sudan's army said in May that drones had flown against it from Bahir Dar Airport and that one belonged to the UAE, and Ethiopia called the charge "baseless" while the UAE called it a "fabrication," according to Serwe, an independent research site. Serwe reviewed public Sentinel-2 satellite images of the airport apron and said new objects appeared there from May 25 and bare ground around them in early October, but it said the 10-meter images cannot show what the objects are.
The Centre for Information Resilience, a British research group that checks claims from the war in Sudan, said it could not corroborate from satellite imagery that drones were housed at Bahir Dar Airport. It said increased activity seen there since November 2025 was more likely linked to the Ethiopian army's own operations.
None of the satellite claims has been confirmed by the governments involved. Mereja has sought comment from the Government Communication Service on whether Emirati personnel operate drones from Bahir Dar and whether new shelters are being built there.