In May 2019 the BBC reported that two medical researchers in Ethiopia were killed by a mob after a rumour spread that they had gone to a school to poison children.
Health workers and researchers already work under suspicion in places where vaccination campaigns and blood sampling collide with fear, politics, and weak public trust. A false rumour can turn a clinic visit into a death sentence within hours.
The case sits inside a wider Horn pattern in which medical teams have been attacked during outbreaks or research visits. It is not only a crime story. It is a warning about how quickly misinformation can erase scientific work.
Kept as health and science archive, the BBC file dates a named mob killing tied to a poison rumour and belongs beside later coverage of vaccine hesitancy and attacks on health staff.
Sources: BBC News