The site of Friday’s drone strike in Rama, Central Tigray, with victims covered by plastic sheeting, in a photo shared on X on October 30, 2026. Mereja Media could not independently verify the image. Photo: Goyteom Gebreegziabher (@Goyteom37) via X
A drone strike on people collecting spilled sorghum in Rama, a Tigray town near the Eritrean border, killed at least 12 civilians on Friday, and witnesses say 12 to 15 died, BBC Amharic reported.
Residents said drones struck the town on three days in a row starting on Wednesday, October 28, and that Friday’s strike was the deadliest. One witness, who asked not to be named for his safety, told BBC Amharic that a vehicle carrying sorghum into Rama was hit by a drone at about 10 PM local time on Thursday, damaging only the truck and its load. On Friday morning the owner called his workers and other people to help gather the grain that had spilled on the road, and the drone struck them while they were working.
“The people had gathered to help him. The drone made no sound, it came straight and dropped on top of them. All of those hurt were young people under 25,” the witness said, in Mereja Media’s translation. He said 10 people died on the spot and two more died while being carried on a three wheeled cart toward Axum for treatment. “It is horrifying. We struggled even to identify the dead. We buried them by guessing who was on the truck,” he said.
A second witness gave a higher figure, saying 13 civilians were killed at the scene and two more died after reaching hospital. Many of them were laborers, and some worked at the town’s bus station, he said. A third witness said he counted at least 25 people killed or wounded, and that the victims, including bajaj drivers, were civilians who worked to feed themselves. “There was no army” in the area, he said.
A hospital source told BBC Amharic on Friday afternoon that about 25 victims were brought in, 12 of them already dead, and that five of the survivors were referred to Adwa and Axum. “The bodies were burned. Some had no visible head, the faces could not be recognized,” the source said, adding that staff identified some of the dead from their remains and others from their identity cards.
Witnesses also described earlier strikes. On Wednesday at about noon, a drone hit a restaurant known as Hagos, killing the owner and one other person and wounding three, one of them said. Another strike on a minibus carrying civilians two days earlier killed two people, according to the second witness. Residents said life in the town had come to a complete stop and that they feared more strikes.
AFP, citing a resident and a medical source, reported on Friday that 11 to 13 people were killed in the grain strike, according to a summary shared on X by the Amharic news account @kotet_amharic. The OSINT account AfriMEOSINT wrote on X on Friday that the Ethiopian National Defence Forces carried out the strike and that at least 14 civilians were killed. Witnesses described what posts on X, including one by Goyteom Gebreegziabher (@Goyteom37), called a “double tap” strike, in which people who gathered after a first attack were hit, a claim Mereja Media could not verify. Others urged care: Hanief Mustafa wrote in Tigrigna that the identity of the attacker should not be taken as confirmed until there is official verification.
Addis Standard, citing a local source who wrote to it by email, reported that 12 civilians were killed instantly and that some of the seriously wounded had no transport to reach hospitals. The conflict monitor ACLED recorded 12 civilians killed in the strike at about 8 AM on Friday and said it was believed to have been carried out by the Ethiopian National Defence Forces, an attribution that has not been confirmed. On X, several users pressed the US Embassy in Addis Ababa, which on Saturday condemned the killing of civilians in Arsi zone, to speak out about Rama as well.
The Salsay Weyane Tigray party said in a statement that 12 people were killed in the strike on civilians in Rama, called the attack “never acceptable” and urged an end to mass attacks on civilians, BBC Amharic reported. Rama is the main town of Mereb Lekhe district in the Central zone of Tigray, close to the border with Eritrea. The federal government has said that forces of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front fighting it are mostly in areas along the Eritrean border, while Rama residents said there was no fighting and no armed movement in the town when the strikes happened. The US research group Critical Threats reported fighting around the Rama and Adwa road in recent days.
The federal government has not commented on the Rama strikes, and BBC Amharic said its attempts to reach federal and defense officials failed. Mereja Media asked the Government Communication Service and the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission on Saturday whether the army carried out the strikes, how many people were killed and whether there will be an investigation.
The Rama strike came a day after a drone attack on a camp for displaced people near Haik in South Wollo, in the Amhara region, which residents said killed 18 people, including children and pregnant women, BBC Amharic reported.