Qualla: Dedebit Elementary School airstrike

Dedebit Elementary School airstrike: Introduction

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Bayhaluk, CC BY-SA 4.0. The youngest was a baby, one year old. Fifteen of the dead at Dedebit Elementary School on the night of 7 January 2022 were children. The oldest were women in their fifties and sixties who had walked there from Humera in Western Tigray, driven from their homes by Amhara regional forces two months earlier. They were sleeping in a primary school classroom in a small town in northwest Tigray when the first bomb went through the roof, and they were running for the gate when the second bomb landed near it, killing more of them as they tried to escape. By morning, between 56 and 59 people were dead, and at least thirty more were injured.

Image: Bayhaluk | CC BY-SA 4.0

Dedebit Elementary School airstrike: Who Was Inside

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Bayhaluk, CC BY-SA 4.0. The people sheltering at Dedebit Elementary School on the night of 7 January were internally displaced persons - refugees in their own country. Amhara regional forces had taken control of Tigray's Western Zone by the end of November 2020, and by December 2021 they had forcibly ex...

Image: Bayhaluk | CC BY-SA 4.0

Dedebit Elementary School airstrike: The Bomb in the Classroom

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Bayhaluk, CC BY-SA 4.0. At some point between 11 p.m. and midnight local time on 7 January 2022 - Ethiopian Christmas - an armed drone dropped three laser-guided MAM-L bombs on the camp. The first struck the main school building, blowing a hole in the roof and killing most people within its blast radius...

Image: Bayhaluk | CC BY-SA 4.0

Dedebit Elementary School airstrike: Who Did It, and How They Knew

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Bayhaluk, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Ethiopian National Defense Force was the only military in the conflict using armed drones at the time. Open-source investigators traced the flight path and concluded that Bahir Dar Airport in the Amhara Region - about 278 kilometres south of Dedebit - was the only base close ...

Image: Bayhaluk | CC BY-SA 4.0

Dedebit Elementary School airstrike: Afterwards

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Bayhaluk, CC BY-SA 4.0. Surviving camp residents spent the rest of the night in fields outside the school grounds. Video footage recorded by Tigrai TV, a TPLF-affiliated media outlet, shows a priest sprinkling holy water on the dead while survivors audibly mourn. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres sa...

Image: Bayhaluk | CC BY-SA 4.0

Dedebit Elementary School airstrike: The Name of the Place

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Bayhaluk, CC BY-SA 4.0. Dedebit is not a famous name. A small town in the northwestern corner of Tigray, on the road between Humera and Shire, it had a primary school that, before November 2021, taught children. For two months in late 2021 and early 2022 it became a refuge for families fleeing ethnic cl...

Image: Bayhaluk | CC BY-SA 4.0