Assessments
Claim by claim
Airstrikes by the Ethiopian National Defense Force, including reported drone strikes, hit five schools in Tigray on 22 September, causing deaths and injuries.
Claimed by UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights · source rating
B2
likely
55–80%
The UN human rights office says this, with a date and a specific count of five schools. It is a named institution with a mandate to report on any party, and in the same statement it makes serious accusations against the other side too, which is a reason to take it seriously rather than read it as partisan.
What complicates it
We could not get the UN's own statement — its website blocks us and the web archive would not capture it — so we are working from two reports of it. No school is named, no casualty figure is given, and no photographs have been published. Without a named location there is nothing for us to check against satellite imagery.
What would change our mind
The OHCHR statement itself, named schools, or imagery would strengthen it. An Ethiopian government rebuttal with specifics, or evidence the strikes hit something else, would weaken it.
A mortar strike killed civilians in Kobo town, Amhara, on 23 September.
Claimed by UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights · source rating
B3
roughly even chance
45–55%
The UN reports civilian deaths in a mortar strike here, but is careful about who fired: its own wording is that the strike was 'reportedly attributed' to the Ethiopian army. Kobo is also a place where advocacy groups on both sides have circulated competing accounts, so we are treating single-sourced claims about it with particular care.
What complicates it
Nobody has published a casualty count, a photograph, or an account from a named witness that we can find. Who fired is not established even by the source that reports it.
What would change our mind
A casualty figure from a hospital or a named local official, or geolocated imagery of the impact site, would raise this. An established alternative origin for the strike would change the attribution.