MSF accuses Ethiopian soldiers of 'targeted killing' of 3 staffers in Tigray in 2021

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AP) — International aid organization Doctors Without Borders on Tuesday released a report describing the gunning-down of three staffers in Ethiopia's Tigray region four years ago as an “intentional and targeted killing” by members of Ethiopia's military.

María Hernández Matas, a 35-year-old Spanish doctor, local colleague Yohannes Haleform Reda and driver Tedros Gebremariam were shot dead in June 2021, forcing the medical charity also known by its French acronym, MSF, to stop its services in Tigray despite conflict there.

The two years of fighting that ended in late 2022 between Tigrayans and the federal government and its allies left an estimated hundreds of thousands of people dead and an unknown number of others wounded.

The new MSF report accuses the Ethiopian federal government of not following through on its promise to investigate and release its findings despite pressure from the families of the deceased and the humanitarian organization.

“And we know that our colleagues were not killed by mistake, or in a crossfire situation. There was no active fighting at that time. They were fully identifiable as humanitarian workers and were shot several times at close range while facing their attackers,” Paula Gil Leyva, president of MSF Spain, told The Associated Press.

The report says Ethiopian troops were on the road where the MSF staffers were killed, and some civilian witnesses overheard a radio exchange between a commander and his troops as he gave an order to shoot.

“Our teams had been suffering hostility and aggressions by the (Ethiopian National Defense Force) ground troops, the (Eritrean Defense Force) troops and their allied militia for weeks before the killings," Leyva said.

Ethiopia's government has not commented on the new report and did not immediately reply to questions from the AP.