bokena
July 29,2018
Updated July 29,2018 at 11:37 local time
Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam Engineer, Simegnew Bekele, is laid to rest at Kidist Selassie Menbere Tsebaot Church (the Holy Trinity Cathedral) in the capital Addis Ababa, this afternoon, local time.
President of the Federal Republic of Ethiopia, Mulatu Teshome, Deputy Prime Minister Demeke Mekonnen, Muferiat Kemil, speaker of the House of representative and Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s representative attended the funeral. Abune Matthias, patriarch of Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahdo Church, led the prayer along with other bishops.
“Ethiopian Grand Renaissance Dam is considered to be his [Simegnew Bekele’] child. The child is born.” Abune Mathias is cited as saying which is understood to be his way of saying Dam will grow and mature.
Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, who spoke to a huge crowd at Walter E. Washington Convention center, in the United States’ yesterday said “It was possible to kill Engineer Simegnew. But no one can stop Ethiopia from finishing the Renaissance Dam project.”
Other senior government officials seem to believe that the engineer was killed by forces enemies of Ethiopia, which makes the death of the engineer an outright assassination.
It is widely believed among Ethiopians that he was killed somewhere else and brought to Meskel Square.
Ethiopian Federal Police Commissioner confirmed on the same day his body was found that he died of bullet wounds and pledged that police would disclose the findings of the investigation to the public. Residents of Gondar and Addis Ababa already took to the street demanding government to disclose the result of the investigation quickly.
Engineer Simegnew Bekele was project manager of $5 billion dollar mega dam over the Nile river, which is said to be the largest project in the continent of Africa and he lived in the project site since the outset of the project.
The Ethiopian government organized a farewell for the slain engineer at Meskel Square, where his body was found inside of his car on Thursday morning this past week. And there was a huge turnout at the Meskel Square.
borkena sources who were at Meskel Square say police fired tear gar to control tens of thousands of crowed as they attempted to come closer to the coffin.
Engineer Simegnew Bekele is survived by two sons and a daughter.
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