Obituary Professor Meareg Amare (1959-2021)

Professor Meareg Amare (1959-2021)

Professor Meareg Amare of Bahir Dar University (BDU) has been assassinated because of his Tigrayan identity. Prof. Meareg was born in Aksum in 1959. He obtained a PhD in Chemistry from Addis Ababa University. Since 1979, he has continuously been working in the Amhara region.

Professor Meareg was a very hardworking, humble, disciplined, and religious person. He was a frequent guest on Amhara TV, where he highlighted the establishment of the University’s chemistry laboratory as well as his projects related Bahir Dar tannery factory effluents. Early 2021, Meareg Amare became Full Professor at BDU. He was killed on Wednesday 3 November 2021. Professor Meareg leaves a wife and four children.

That unfortunate 3 November, in the morning, Prof. Meareg was in the university to process some documents for his retirement and he met the academic Vice President. In the afternoon, he was killed in front of his house in Bahir Dar by security people. Nobody was allowed to pick him up, and the dead body was on the ground for a long time, until the municipality buried him. His wife, together with some relatives, is currently in prison.

On Friday 5 November, as coordinator of the Institutional University Cooperation (IUC) programme with Bahir Dar University, funded by the Belgian Development Cooperation through VLIR-UOS, I have invited the BDU President, Vice-President for Research and Community Services, as well as the IUC manager to publish a condemnation of this murder. Until today, 9 November, the BDU management has not reacted on the murder of one of their senior professors: no empathy, no condemnation, no call for investigation.

Jan Nyssen (Prof. Dr.)
Guest professor at Bahir Dar University
North Coordinator of the IUC programme with Bahir Dar University
Ghent University
Belgium

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Professor Meareg’s son Abraham, on behalf of the family, has posted an obituary on Facebook in Amharic language.

This is the English translation:

A mourning expression from his beloved and always-longed family

In 1953^[1], our father, Professor Meareg Amare Abraham (Doctor), joined the world as the second child of his family in the town of Leto, outside the city of Aksum. He attended his primary and secondary education in Aksum. After completion of his secondary education in 1973, he joined the Science Teachers Training Program (STTP) and received a Diploma in Chemistry, at the then Alemaya College of Agriculture in 1974. After his diploma, our beloved, respected intellectual father has served as a teacher at the secondary school in Dabat town, Wegera district of Gondar province. At that time, he was arrested by the Derg military government in 1975 and remained in the Gondar Baeta Prison until Tahassas 29, 1977 (7 January 1985). He was later released from prison and was a teacher in the Tikl-dingay and Dangla schools. He also served at Tana Hayk school, raising himself as a longtime teacher, continuing his bachelor’s degree in Chemistry in the summer education program of Addis Ababa University’s “Arat Kilo” Campus. After receiving his bachelor’s degree, he became Vice President for the Amhara Regional State Teachers’ Association and served as an expert in the educational bureau of the region. Our father was the author of the 7^th, 8^th, 9^th, 10^th-grade textbooks of chemistry which we all learned in the 1990s, and editor of the 11^th and 12^th-grade textbooks. Later, he joined Addis Ababa University for his M.Sc. degree in Analytical Chemistry in 2005. After receiving his MSc degree, he started his new teaching role at a tertiary level where Bahir dar University became his destination. Due to his passion for knowledge and development, from the time he joined Bahir Dar University until he was brutally murdered, our beloved father made significant contributions to the university through research and teaching undergraduate, graduate, and postgraduate students. Our father and his co-authors have published over 36 articles. Our father considered rest to be laziness, and he never took a day off from work; instead, he spent his weekends’ learning and teaching (often after church or prayer times). He worked 14-15 hours a day in his office, laboratory, and on his laptop, including weekends and holidays. After much effort and collaboration with his colleagues, our father was able to establish an extensive chemistry laboratory, for which his department and the University have been recognized. In addition to his professional activities in teaching, research, and community service, our father has served the university in various administrative and committee positions. As a result of his successive contributions, he was an associate professor at Bahir Dar University and then promoted to Full Professorship in 2013. Our Father married our mother, Nigist Hailu, who was born and raised in Dabat, on Miyaziya 13, 1977 (21 April 1985) under Ethiopian Orthodox wedding traditions. They have three sons and one daughter, as well as two grandchildren. Our parents lived happily and fearfully; they respected and adored each other every day. For nearly 31 years, we lived in the house our parents built in Kebele 13 in Bahir Dar. Our father was a wonderful man who consoled the bereaved, helped those in need, never gave up in hard times, and never boosted in good times. He was a devout Christian who observed and celebrated the Orthodox church’s holy days, particularly Ba’at Mariam, every year. In addition to his family, our father had a special love and respect for the residents of Bahir Dar, especially his neighbors and students. Our father retired on Megabit 20, 2013 (29 March 2021), but he had an agreement with the University to work another year, so he was still working. Our father had plans to write a series of books in Amharic, English, and Tigrinya for children and adults, as well as his biography (memoir). He had completed five books and was working on several more, not to mention his research outputs. He was working non-stop to complete all of his planned books. On 24/2/2014 (3 November 2021), he was gunned down in front of his house at midday, on the same day his late father’s death was remembered in Aksum. He had spent 40 years of his life in the Amhara region and teaching its’ youth. On the date of holy Teklehaymanot, he was killed in a horrific shooting while opening the front door of the car we, his children, had gifted him years before. They then picked up his YARIS car (license plate number 80771 AA.2). If the unjustly shed blood of our father is investigated, it will be revealed that he was more concerned, caring, and a servant of the Amhara community in action, than his killers, who believe they have killed him for the benefit of the Amharas they claim to represent. People who know him well and Amhara television programs are the best evidence of this. Our beloved father wished, as he always did in his private and family prayers, to be buried with dignity and pride in his birthplace, in Aksum city, where all of his beloved family could be present and in Orthodox Christian traditional way. What makes our grief even more bitter is that we were not allowed to bury him, and we were kept in the dark about his funeral process and location.

* Does our beloved father deserve all this, in the country he considered, I ask it to the whole country, to all our people?

* Why? Why? Why did our beloved father have to be killed in public on Wednesday, his stomach empty from fasting?

* Why? Why should our father, who has no criminal or suspicious records, be brutally murdered in front of his peaceful and quiet home?

* Our beloved father !!!!!, how might you have felt and what thoughts might you have had as you neared death?

*We expect justice and peace from only our GOD!

From his beloved family!

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[1] All dates in Ethiopian calendar

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