PREVIEW
Charity’s probe made public after Addis Ababa failed to investigate
Médecins Sans Frontières’ conclusion that in 2021 Ethiopian troops ‘executed’ three of the medical charity’s employees during the fierce fighting in the northern Tigray province is likely to lead to more international condemnation of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed.
María Hernández Matas, a Spanish national, and Ethiopians Yohannes Halefom Reda and Tedros Gebremariam Gebremichael were in marked humanitarian vehicles and MSF said that the team's travel route had been shared in advance with belligerents.
Its internal review concluded that the killings on 24 June 2021 were ‘intentional and targeted’. It also established that a convoy of Ethiopian National Defense Force (ENDF) was present at the time of the incident on the same road where the MSF personnel were killed.
MSF says that it was forced to publish its internal review after Ethiopian authorities refused to complete their own investigation or provide ‘any credible answers’, stating that it had a ‘moral obligation’ to ‘shed light on a brutal killing that must not be ignored or buried.’ Addis Ababa had ‘failed to fulfil its moral obligations to conclude an investigation into the attack’. Abiy’s ministers have refused to meet with them or discuss their report, says MSF.
The findings are embarrassing for Abiy’s government and underscore the war crimes committed by all sides in the Tigray war. Meanwhile, there are growing concerns that the Pretoria peace agreement of November 2022 that ended the conflict is fraying.
Factionalism in the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, whose loyalists fought against the Ethiopian and Eritrean armies in the war, and growing rivalry between Abiy and Eritrean leader Issayas Afewerki have raised fears of a new conflict (AC Vol 66 No 6, Tigray’s political fight sounds alarm & Vol 66 No 11, Abiy bans Tigray party, risking new war).
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