Medical charity MSF says three staff killed in Ethiopia’s Tigray region

Issued on: 25/06/2021 – 20:18Modified: 25/06/2021 – 20:20

The trio “were travelling yesterday afternoon when we lost contact with them. This morning, their vehicle was found empty and a few metres away, their lifeless bodies,” said the statement. 

They were in Tigray “providing assistance to people, and it is unthinkable that they paid for this work with their lives.

“No words can truly convey all our sadness, shock and outrage against this horrific attack. Nor can words soothe the loss and suffering of their families and loved ones, to whom we relay our deepest sympathy and condolences,” the international aid group said.

MSF, or Doctors Without Borders, said 35-year-old Maria Hernandez from Madrid was among those killed.

She started working for MSF in 2015 in the Central African Republic and had since worked in Yemen, Mexico and Nigeria.

Also killed in the attack were Yohannes Halefom Reda, a 31-year-old coordination assistant who joined MSF in February 2021, and Tedros Gebremariam Gebremichael, also 31, who had been a driver for the charity since May.

“We condemn this attack on our colleagues in the strongest possible terms and will be relentless in understanding what happened,” said MSF, which was founded in Paris but is headquartered in Geneva and has several global affiliates.

In a tweet, Spanish Foreign Minister Arancha Gonzalez Laya expressed her “great sadness” over the deaths and said she was in contact with the authorities in Ethiopia to “clarify” what happened and repatriate Hernandez’s remains.

Another MSF team was attacked in March after witnessing Ethiopian soldiers pulling men off two public buses and shooting them dead. Soldiers beat the MSF driver and threatened to kill him, the aid group said at the time.

Heavy fighting in Tigray

The latest attack occurred amid some of the fiercest fighting in Tigray since the conflict began in November. This week Ethiopia’s military acknowledged carrying out an air strike on a busy market in Tigray that health workers said killed several dozen civilians. The military claimed it was targeting combatants.

The conflict in Tigray has been deeply challenging for humanitarian workers who have pleaded for better access to the region since the fighting began, with Ethiopian forces backed by ones from neighboring Eritrea pursuing Tigray’s former leaders. Several aid groups have reported staffers killed.

More than 350,000 people in Tigray already face famine, according to the UN and other humanitarian groups. The UN on Thursday warned that at least 33,000 children in inaccessible parts of Tigray “are severely malnourished and face imminent death without immediate help.”

Meanwhile, Ethiopia awaits the results of Monday’s national election, the first test at the polls for Abiy who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019. a year after taking office. He now stands accused by critics of backsliding on political reforms. 

(FRANCE 24 with AP and AFP)