Ethiopia cancels Virgin Mary festival over drone strike fears in Tigray

In Mekelle, the capital of Ethiopia's Tigray region, thousands of young women will not gather this Saturday as they have for generations. The Ashenda festival—a three-day celebration of women and the Virgin Mary that draws girls and young women dressed in their finest, their hair braided in the traditional way, free to dance and play together in public—has been cancelled. The reason is fear. Recent drone strikes have made a public gathering of that size, in that place, feel too dangerous.

Ashenda means "the tall green grass" in Tigrinya, and the festival has evolved far beyond its religious roots into a wider cultural event that marks a rare moment of freedom for women in the region. It is eagerly anticipated each year. Girls prepare for months. But on Thursday, a drone struck Mekelle itself, injuring thirteen civilians and damaging homes. Two days earlier, strikes near Dandera, about nine miles from the city, killed one person and wounded another. On August 10, another strike in Raya-Alamata district left three dead. The pattern was clear enough that Dori Asgedom, head of Tigray's culture and tourism bureau, made the decision to cancel the stadium gathering. He cited "ongoing drone strikes and the threat of war."

Tigray is not at peace, even though the guns fell silent in 2022. The region endured a brutal civil war between the Tigray People's Liberation Front and the federal government that lasted two years and killed hundreds of thousands of people. A peace deal was signed that year, but it has not held. The TPLF recently removed the interim administration that was installed under the agreement and reinstated its own pre-war council. Both sides now accuse each other of failing to implement the terms they agreed to. Political tensions have risen sharply. The drone strikes—which regional officials blame on federal armed forces, though the government has not responded to requests for comment—are being read as a sign that the conflict could reignite.

The cancellation of Ashenda is a small measure of that larger fear. It is also a concrete one. The regional administration has called on the international community to condemn the strikes and take urgent diplomatic action to prevent further escalation. What they are really saying is that Tigray, still raw from war, is sliding back toward it. A festival of women dancing in a stadium has become too risky. That is what the current moment feels like on the ground.