'Finish Them Off': Aid Workers, Found on Battlefield, Executed by Soldiers

[Zorro]

Three employees of Doctors Without Borders set out to rescue the wounded in a war zone in northern Ethiopia. Their fate shows the treacherous path for many aid workers in conflict zones.

As the fight intensified in northern Ethiopia in June last year, three aid workers from Doctors Without Borders jumped into their four-wheel drive and raced across the battle-scarred landscape, searching for casualties.

Hours later they vanished. The aid workers stopped answering their satellite phone. A tracking device showed their vehicle making a sudden U-turn, then stopping. Colleagues frantically tried to locate them.

The next day they were found dead, their bullet-riddled bodies sprawled on a dusty roadside near their burned-out vehicle: María Hernández, a 35-year-old Spaniard and conflict veteran, in a bloodstained white bib with the Doctors Without Borders logo; Yohannes Halefom, a 32-year-old Ethiopian medic, face down in the dirt; and their Ethiopian driver Tedros Gebremariam, 31, lying on the road about 300 yards away.

Doctors Without Borders, widely known by its French name, Médecins Sans Frontières, immediately denounced the killings as “brutal murder” but did not identify any culprit. Now, one is coming into view.

Investigators, senior aid officials and Ethiopian soldiers interviewed by the Times said the three aid workers were gunned down by retreating Ethiopian government troops on the orders of a commander who was infuriated to find them in an active combat zone.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/17/world/africa/ethiopia-tigray-aid-workers-killed.html

[electric_blue68]

1. 😔

[Haggis 4 Breakfast]

2. "Infuriated to find them in an active combat zone" . . .

That's what they DO.

Medecins Sans Frontieres. They are medical people - doctors, nurses, specialists - not soldiers. They are never armed and do not incite violence. "Bullet ridden bodies" WHY ???? This is disgusting. Murdering unarmed aid and health care professionals is beneath contempt.

[localroger]

4. It is classed as a war crime, but also still used by some as a tactic to target medical units. /nt

[maxsolomon]

5. I don't assume that low-ranking Ethiopian troops understand the distinction.

I'd hope they do but I don't expect it.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

3. What was the rationale for this horrific brutal slaying? I am aghast. n/t

[milestogo]

6. ...

[mountain grammy]

7. Horrific and tragic loss

[czarjak]

8. Open Season on the righteous is just wrong.