Simegnew Bekele Aynalem (; 13 September 1964 – 26 July 2018) was an

Ethiopian Ethiopians are the native inhabitants of Ethiopia, as well as the global diaspora of Ethiopia. Ethiopians constitute several component ethnic groups, many of which are closely related to ethnic groups in neighboring Eritrea and other parts of ...

civil engineer A civil engineer is a person who practices civil engineering – the application of planning, designing, constructing, maintaining, and operating infrastructure while protecting the public and environmental health, as well as improving existing i ...

who served as chief project manager of the

Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD or TaIHiGe; , , ), formerly known as the Millennium Dam and sometimes referred to as the Hidase Dam (, ), is a gravity dam on the Blue Nile River in Ethiopia. The dam is in the Benishangul-Gumuz Region ...

project as well as three other similar dam projects in Ethiopia. He was considered the "public face" of the dam project.

Biography

Simegnew was born in 1964 in the small town of Maksegnit located in Begmeder Province. He completed a course at the

Ethiopian Electric Power Corporation Ethiopian Electric Power () is an Ethiopian electrical power industry and state-owned electric producer. It is engaged in development, investment, construction, operation, and management of power plants, power generation and power transmission. ...

(EEPCo) technical training center in 1986. He taught at the institution for a while after graduating with a degree in

Civil Engineering Civil engineering is a regulation and licensure in engineering, professional engineering discipline that deals with the design, construction, and maintenance of the physical and naturally built environment, including public works such as roads ...

from

Addis Ababa University Addis Ababa University (; AAU) is a national university located in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. It is the oldest university in Ethiopia. AAU has thirteen campuses. Twelve of these are situated in Addis Ababa, and one is located in Bishoftu, about away. ...

in 1997. He served as deputy project manager for the Gilgel Gibe I and the project manager for the Gilgel Gibe II dams. In 2011 he was designated as head of the Ethiopian Renaissance Dam Project Office (GERDPO), since the start of its construction in 2011. In 2015 the ''Tigrai Online''

e-magazine An online magazine is a magazine published on the Internet, through bulletin board systems and other forms of public computer networks. One of the first magazines to convert from a print magazine format to an online only magazine was the comput ...

named him as its person of the year.

Death

On the morning of 26 July 2018, Simegnew was found shot dead in his

Toyota Land Cruiser The , also sometimes spelt as LandCruiser, is a series of four-wheel drive vehicles produced by the Japanese automobile manufacturer Toyota. It is Toyota's longest running series of models. , the sales of the Land Cruiser totalled more than 1 ...

Meskel Square Meskel Square () is a public square in the city of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. It is often a site for Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church gatherings or for demonstrations and festivals, notably, the Meskel Festival from which it takes its name. H ...

Addis Ababa Addis Ababa (; ,) is the capital city of Ethiopia, as well as the regional state of Oromia. With an estimated population of 2,739,551 inhabitants as of the 2007 census, it is the largest city in the country and the List of cities in Africa b ...

. Speaking at a press conference,

Ethiopian Federal Police The Ethiopian Federal Police (EFP; ) is the law enforcement agency of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia. Established in 1995, the agency aims with objectives of maintaining or safeguarding the public security, human and democratic rights ...

Commissioner Zeynu Ummer said that he had been found with a Colt gun in his right hand and a bullet wound behind his right ear, however foul play has been suspected. Simegnew had been scheduled to give a press conference on the progress of the dam later that day, following comments by Prime Minister

Abiy Ahmed Abiy Ahmed Ali (; ; born 15 August 1976) is an Ethiopian politician who is the current Prime Minister of Ethiopia since 2018 and the leader of the Prosperity Party since 2019. He rose through the ranks of government via the Information Networ ...

that construction could take up to ten more years, far more than previous projections. He was the public face of the dam being built near the country's western border with Sudan that, when completed, would be Africa's largest. Simegnew's death is the second of a high-profile company official at around that time. In May, gunmen ambushed and killed Deep Kamara, the country manager for Nigeria's

Dangote Cement Dangote Cement Plc is a Nigerian publicly traded multinational cement manufacturer headquartered in Lagos. The company is engaged in the manufacture, preparation, import, packaging, and distribution of cement and related products in Nigeria, and ...

, alongside two others in the Oromia region outside Addis Ababa. Simegnew's death sparked protests in Addis Ababa, with marchers demanding justice for what they assumed was his assassination. Tens of thousands of people gathered in Meskel Square and along Menelik II Avenue to witness his funeral procession on 29 July. Prime Minister

reacted to the news, saying he was "saddened and utterly shocked" by the engineer's death. On 7 September, police investigation reports suggested that Simegnew committed suicide by self-inflicted gunshot wounds. Conspiracy theories relating to his death circulated by some skeptics who promote anti-governmental rhetoric, whether he was killed by government agent or

TPLF The Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF; ), also known as the Tigrayan People's Liberation Front, is a left-wing ethnic nationalist, paramilitary group, and the former ruling party of Ethiopia. It was classified as a terrorist organization ...

's recruiter.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bekele, Simegnew 1964 births 2018 deaths Ethiopian engineers Addis Ababa University alumni Deaths by firearm in Ethiopia 20th-century Ethiopian people 21st-century Ethiopian people

Biography

Death

See also

References