Doctors Without Borders has accused Ethiopia’s government of failing to properly investigate the slayings of three of the group’s aid workers, releasing a new report on Tuesday that implicates Ethiopian soldiers and demands that the country’s government bring the perpetrators to justice.
The report was the latest turn in a four-year effort to seek accountability for a notorious episode of violence against international humanitarian workers. The aid workers’ bullet-riddled bodies were found on a remote roadside in the northern Tigray region of Ethiopia in June 2021, at the height of a brutal civil war.
“Our team was executed,” Raquel Ayora, a senior official with Doctors Without Borders, told reporters in Nairobi on Tuesday. “There is no way the perpetrators could not know that they were killing civilians.”
Although the report by Doctors Without Borders stopped short of explicitly naming perpetrators, it appeared to suggest that Ethiopian soldiers were responsible. That finding was broadly similar to a 2022 investigation by The New York Times that identified an Ethiopian military officer who gave orders to “finish off” the aid workers shortly before they were killed.
Doctors Without Borders, which is widely known by its French name, Médecins Sans Frontières, noted that the Ethiopian government and its forces had shown increased hostility toward international aid groups in the weeks leading up to the shootings. It also said that retreating Ethiopian troops were present on the road where the team was killed.
But the group said that despite repeated assurances from the Ethiopian government that an investigation was underway, the victims’ families still have not received “credible answers” about what happened.
“It is both unconscionable and unacceptable that the Ethiopian authorities have consistently failed to conclude a credible investigation and share its findings,” said Paula Gil, the head of M.S.F. Spain, which employed the slain aid workers. She said that the organization “can only assume that there is insufficient political will to share the findings of a completed investigation.”
The office of Ethiopia’s prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, did not respond to a request for comment.
The war in Tigray began in November 2020 when tensions between Mr. Abiy and the Tigrayan regional government exploded into a conflict characterized by starvation, sieges and ethnic massacres — largely perpetrated by the Ethiopian military and allied forces.
The aid workers — María Hernández, 35, Yohannes Halefom, 32, and Tedros Gebremariam, 31 — vanished in June 2021 while driving through the Tigray region looking for casualties from the conflict. Their bodies were later found sprawled on the roadside not far from their burned-out vehicle.
The report released on Tuesday contained the findings of an internal review that the aid organization began in response to their deaths. In it, Doctors Without Borders detailed a yearslong quest for information from the Ethiopian government, including phone calls, emails and over 20 meetings with various government officials.
“The review confirmed that the attack was intentional and targeted killing of three clearly identified aid workers,” Doctors Without Borders said in a statement.
According to the report, Ethiopia’s government early on blamed the killings on the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, its foe in the two-year war — but the government declined to share its own findings, citing an ongoing investigation.
The Ethiopian officials also claimed their forces had already withdrawn from that part of Tigray when the aid workers were killed, according to Doctors Without Borders.
However, Doctors Without Borders said its review found that Ethiopian troops, retreating after a stinging defeat, were still active in the area — which corresponded with the Times investigation.
“What remains to be clarified is the extent and nature of their involvement in the attack,” the report said, adding that Doctors Without Borders had received “concerning witness accounts” that “directly implicated” Ethiopian soldiers in the attack.
By some estimates, over 500,000 people died as a result of the war in Tigray, and at least five million were forced from their homes in 2021 alone.
The conflict ended in November 2022 with a peace deal that was brokered by the African Union with support from the United States. That fragile agreement has largely held, despite growing regional tensions and the devastating toll of the war.
Eve Sampson is a reporter covering international news and a member of the 2024-25 Times Fellowship class, a program for journalists early in their careers.
Declan Walsh is the chief Africa correspondent for The Times based in Nairobi, Kenya. He previously reported from Cairo, covering the Middle East, and Islamabad, Pakistan.
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