A veteran of the Eritrean struggle for independence and the leader of the General Command (Qiada AlAma) that took the ELF to its first Congress has died this morning in Khartoum. Mohammed Ahmed Abdu who was seventy, �died before setting foot in independent Eritrea, his country, for which he spent his youth in the struggle to liberate it�. In the late fifties, he was studying in Egypt from where he went to Syria for military training and after graduation in the early sixties, he joined the ELF.

Mohammed Abdu was operated on two months ago for a liver problem and a second operation carried out last Thursday was not successful.

Mohammed Abdu died a poor man and forgotten in Khartoum. Over a week ago from his hospital bed, he gave his last interview to Mohammed Taha Tewekel. In the published interview, Tewekel indirectly criticized the Eritrean opposition leaders mentioning that what they spend for �a single night in a five-star hotel could pay for the operation of Mohammed Abdu�.