As the sun was setting on Sunday, March 28, 1976, Colonel Beshu, a high-ranking Ethiopian military commander, was killed by Eritrean freedom fighters in the center of Asmera, the beautiful East African capital city of Eritrea. The reprisal by Ethiopian authorities was swift and horrific. Scores of civilians were massacred in their homes through a long, lonely night of terror.
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. His family was left to tend to the slain body, in utter loneliness.
The young electrician was my father, I was fifteen years old, and I was forced to flee across wilderness and war zones to become a refugee in the Sudan. The Tigrayan Electrician - Memories of my Father and His Beloved Motherland retraces the desolation of that night and the flight it compelled.
On the night of my father's murder, the Ethiopian authorities went on a rampage to execute defenseless civilians under the cover of darkness. A half-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.
The Ethiopian government, led by a Nobel Peace Prize-winning premier, isolated the six million people of Tigray under a total communication and transportation blockade and launched a vicious war. Out of sight of the world's attention, the Ethiopian army and their allies committed unspeakable atrocities, including ethnic cleansing, mass killing, and widespread sexual violence. The brutal onslaught was followed by a merciless siege of Tigray that has now been in place for two years. Tigrayans who did not die of bullets and bombs are now perishing from hunger and disease, totally isolated from the rest of the planet. Genocide is being perpetrated in Tigray with very little concern from the rest of the world.
This book is dedicated to the memory of the victims of the ongoing genocide in Tigray, and all proceeds will be donated to support the survivors.
