Aid workers were “intentionally killed” in 2021 incident, charity finds.
Doctors Without Borders has accused Ethiopia’s government of failing to properly investigate the deaths of three aid workers who were killed in June 2021 while working in the Tigray region. The group claims that Ethiopian soldiers are responsible for their deaths and is demanding justice for the victims’ families.
The report comes after a four-year investigation into the killings, which was prompted by the deaths of María Hernández, Yohannes Halefom, and Tedros Gebremariam. The aid workers were found with bullet wounds on a remote roadside in Tigray, where they had been working to provide humanitarian assistance to civilians affected by the war.
Doctors Without Borders says that the Ethiopian government initially blamed the killings on their foe in the conflict, the Tigrayan regional government, but declined to share its own findings. The group claims that despite repeated assurances from the government that an investigation was underway, the victims’ families still have not received credible answers about what happened.
The report found that Ethiopian troops were present on the road where the aid workers were killed and that retreating forces had shown increased hostility towards international aid groups in the weeks leading up to the shootings. The group says that it can only assume there is insufficient political will to share the findings of a completed investigation.
The killings are part of a larger conflict in Tigray, which began in November 2020 and has resulted in an estimated 500,000 deaths and at least five million displaced people. A fragile peace agreement brokered by the African Union was reached in November 2022, but regional tensions remain high.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/15/world/africa/ethiopia-tigray-msf.html