Gunmen Kill a Red Cross Ambulance Driver in Metekel

An ambulance on a routine humanitarian run was attacked by armed men in Dangur district, Metekel Zone, Benishangul-Gumuz, killing the driver and putting the vehicle out of service, the Ethiopian Red Cross Society said.

The society identified the driver as Mulugeta Andualem and the vehicle by its plate, 5-02762. It dated the attack to about 7:20pm on Tikimt 4 in the Ethiopian calendar, in Jirse village, some 50 kilometres from the district town. The society condemned the attack and offered condolences.

An ambulance is not a soft target by accident

Attacks on marked medical transport are treated separately from other roadside violence for a reason: the protection is what makes the vehicle useful. An ambulance travels where an escorted convoy cannot, and it does so because the emblem is supposed to be read as neutrality rather than as a target.

Once that reading fails in a particular district, the practical consequence is immediate and expensive. Agencies either suspend movement or move only with escort, and escorted movement runs at a fraction of the pace and several times the cost. For anyone operating in Metekel — contractors, haulage firms, mining operations, the agricultural investments along the Beles corridor — the loss of an unescorted medical run is the clearest available signal of what the roads are now worth.

A pattern on the same corridor

This is the second reported attack on the Metekel road network in three weeks. Seven people were killed on the Chagni–Gilgel Beles road in late September.

Open

No group has been named as responsible, and no account has been given of what security was present on the route. Whether the Red Cross will suspend unescorted movement in Dangur, and whether the regional administration intends to respond, are both unanswered.

Sources: Tikvah Ethiopia, 16 October 2026