The TIGRAYAN ELECTRICIAN
The Tigrayan Electrician
As the sun was setting on the last Sunday of March 1976, Colonel Beshu, a high-ranking Ethiopian military commander, was killed by Eritrean patriots in the center of Asmera, the beautiful capital city of Eritrea. The reprisal by Ethiopian authorities was swift and horrific. Scores of civilians were massacred in their homes. A young electrician was among the victims as soldiers of the Ethiopian government broke into his home and gunned him down in the presence of his loved ones, who were left to tend to the slain body in utter loneliness. The young electrician was my father. I was fifteen years old. The Tigrayan Electrician - Memories of my Father and His Beloved Motherland retraces the desolation of that night and the flight it compelled. The sun rises eventually, but there is no repose. Half a century later, the same crime is being perpetrated on a massive scale by the Ethiopian government against my father’s birthplace, the Tigray region, in northern Ethiopia.
Issayas Yrgaw Bahta
Author
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Issayas Yrgaw Bahta was born in Eritrea, East Africa. During the Eritrean war of independence, he witnessed the killing of his father by Ethiopian government soldiers. He was fifteen years old. He escaped through wilderness and war zones to reach a refugee camp in the bordering country of the Sudan. His search for safety and a better future led him to Italy two years later, where he completed high school. He was finally granted refugee status in the United Kingdom, where he won a scholarship to study medicine and fulfill a lifetime dream of becoming a physician. He received his medical degree from the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom and completed his surgical training in the United States. The Tigrayan Electrician: Memories of my Father and His Beloved Motherland is his first book detailing the tragic loss of his father and his flight to safety.
“We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere. When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant.”
- Elie Wiesel