MSF demands answers over killings in Tigray

Medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has asked Ethiopia to respond to a media report that government forces killed three of their staff members in conflict-hit region of Tigray last year.

The bodies of the three aid workers – María Hernández, Yohannes Halefom and Tedros Gebremariam – were found at a roadside next to their burned out vehicle in June.

A report published on Thursday by The New York Times said they were shot dead by retreating Ethiopian soldiers on the orders of a commander who was angered by their presence in an active combat zone.

The paper says it interviewed investigators, senior aid officials and Ethiopian soldiers about the incident.

One witness said the aid workers, who had been searching for those wounded in the war zone, had their hands over their heads when they were shot.

A brutal war erupted in Tigray in November 2020 when the government fell out the region’s ruling TPLF party – and has spread to the neighbouring regions.

MSF says it is clear the killings were intentional, but it wants to understand the exact circumstances of what happened and who was behind it.

The Ethiopian government is yet to respond to The New York Times’s allegations.