Ethiopia makes drones at two factories amid insurgencies

Ethiopia is manufacturing drones at two domestic factories as federal forces use drones against insurgents in several regions, analysts and conflict monitors say.

Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed inaugurated SkyWin Aeronautics Industries in Addis Ababa in March 2025. The state Ethiopian News Agency said the factory makes unmanned aerial vehicles for civilian and military use, and Abiy said the aim was deterrence rather than fuelling conflict.

Ethiopian authorities have not allowed foreign media access to the site, and analysts said the country's real production capacity remains unclear. Pieter Wezeman, a researcher at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, told AFP that one display hall gives little evidence of production capacity or the origin of technology and components. He assessed that a substantial part was imported.

Ethiopia has bought Akinci and Bayraktar TB2 drones from Turkey, Wing Loong drones from China and Mohajer-6 drones from Iran. Jeremy Binnie of Janes said the model displayed at the SkyWin inauguration, marked SW01, closely resembled a commercially available Chinese model. He said mass-producing such drones could improve military effectiveness if units used them for finding targets and adjusting artillery fire, and said they could also be modified to carry small bombs.

Wim Zwijnenburg, a drone specialist for PAX, said a second factory, Aeroabay, opened in late 2025 and produces thousands of small weaponised drones costing $5,000 to $10,000 each. These first-person-view quadcopters can scan terrain and carry explosive payloads, and some are controlled by fibre-optic cables to avoid electronic jamming.

The conflict tracking group ACLED says federal forces have carried out 102 drone strikes in the northern Amhara region since an insurgency by the Fano militia began in April 2023. It also says drones have been used against rebels in Oromia and that there have been at least 14 drone strikes in Tigray this year, including seven in August.

Magnus Taylor of the International Crisis Group said drones have been blamed for civilian deaths on several occasions. Amanuel Assefa, vice president of the Tigray People's Liberation Front, accused the federal army of using drones to create terror, target officials and damage civilian infrastructure. Analysts differed on whether recent strikes could point to a possible federal offensive or an effort to avoid a ground war.