I was in Tigray when the silence turned into something heavier. Hearing about the deaths of Maria, Tedros, and Yohannes made me feel like giving up. It was a breaking point.
I had known the name ‘MSF’—Médecins Sans Frontières—through sexual violence survivors I met in rural areas or some who had managed to come to the city. In villages no one could reach, MSF was there. Survivors told me about how they received some kind of help—medical care, emotional support, even basic supplies. And then, to hear that those very people who showed up to help were murdered. It silenced me. It scared me. I felt something break even deeper when I heard about Maria. Maybe it was because she was international. I thought they’d never cross that line. I thought that would be a red line for Ethiopian, Eritrean, or Amhara forces. But when Maria was killed, I realized—in Tigray, no one is safe.
The shock I felt was a slow, suffocating realization that even those who came to save lives were now targets. When the three MSF workers were murdered in June 2021, it felt like the world stopped looking. But for us, that moment burned everything into sharp focus.
Civilians in Tigray were not collateral damage. This was given as a common explanation for the atrocities from the Ethiopian government. Civilians were the intended targets. Massacres weren’t random—they were patterns of genocide. People were shot while fleeing. Women were raped in front of their children. Villages were burned. Bodies were left in fields and roadsides. Even MSF’s internal investigation bore witness to this horror. While searching for their murdered colleagues, they found nine other civilian corpses nearby. That same day, in the surrounding area near the Teaching College, MSF discovered 21 more dead bodies. In the face of so many deaths, the true shock was the rare and haunting moment when someone was found alive among the dead.
And through it all, MSF stayed.
They walked into danger, negotiated with armed groups, and delivered medicine. They treated sexual violence survivors, children, girls, mothers, and pregnant women bleeding out in remote areas. They were hopeful when there was none left. But the hope vanished the moment Maria and her colleagues were killed. Soon after, MSF shut down and evacuated. The killers succeeded in silencing care itself.
The intention was clear: those suffering in Tigray do not deserve to be treated. They are meant to suffer, to die quietly.
The MSF released a public report following its investigation into the killing of MSF’s staff confirmed what we in Tigray already knew:
“We found no indication that the vehicle was caught in crossfire. The bodies of María, Tedros, and Yohannes were found at distances of 100 to 400 metres from the MSF car, each with multiple gunshot wounds. They were shot at close range, Our colleagues were executed.”
That line cut deep. This was an execution for trying to help victims. Maria, Tedros, Yohannes—they weren’t just names in a report. They were our lifelines. They stood for humanity, and that made them dangerous in the eyes of those who wanted to destroy it.
What hurts most is that the report also confirms: no one has taken responsibility. No justice. No accountability. Just silence. But silence does not erase memory. That’s why I’m writing this—because I remember everything as if it happened yesterday.
The Dilemma of Humanitarianism in Today’s War Zones
Tigray is not the only place where humanitarian values are being slaughtered. In Gaza, doctors and nurses are bombed in hospitals. Even wearing medical uniforms or displaying aid emblems has become a target on your back. In Sudan, food convoys are looted or blocked as people starve. In Afghanistan and Myanmar, access to aid is used as a bargaining chip in political games. In Tigray, humanitarian workers killed, tortured and arrested, hospitals were looted and turned into military camps, ambulances stolen or bombed, patients left to bleed out because they belonged to the “wrong ethnicity.”
The message is no longer hidden: caring for civilians is now treated as armed resistance. Providing food, medical care, or shelter is seen as betrayal of the agendas of war.
This is the most dangerous crisis facing humanitarianism today, the collapse of protection mechanisms, the erosion of the belief that saving lives is worth respecting.
International organizations speak of neutrality, humanity, and the sacred space of care. But in Tigray, they couldn’t even protect their own. MSF lost Maria, Yohannes, and Tedros—not in crossfire, but in a calculated execution. And the perpetrators, like many in other war zones, knew this brutal truth: there would be no real consequences.
The murder of MSF staff was not just a tragedy—it was a global signal:
“Even they can’t protect their own. Don’t trust them. Don’t believe in help. No one will save you without our blessing.”
And tragically, that message is working.
Because what’s at stake now is the very soul of humanitarian action. When aid workers like Maria are killed simply for choosing compassion, when they die without accountability, we are forced to ask:
What does humanitarianism even mean anymore? It’s the lives lost and the loss of trust.
When civilians watch MSF workers murdered, when survivors of sexual violence see the only organization treating them shut down and evacuate, the wound is deeper than abandonment, it is a confirmation that their lives don’t matter to the world.
This is the humanitarian dilemma: How do you keep saving lives in a world that punishes you for it?
How do you tell people to believe in care, in compassion, in justice—when those values are treated as crimes?
In Tigray and elsewhere, aid workers were targeted—because they cared. And that cannot be normalized. You cannot claim to uphold human rights while staying silent when those who risk their lives to uphold them are murdered in cold blood.
To those who have carried this pain in silence, including family members—we carry it together. We remember Maria, Yohannes, and Tedros in gratitude. We honor them with tears and truth. MSF stood with us when no one else did. Now, we must stand for them. Speak their names. Tell their story. Refuse to let silence win.
And to Maria—thank you. You gave us more than medical care. You gave us dignity. You will always be in our hearts. You are not forgotten.
