The Opposition Loses Dr Yohannes Ligiam; Misses His Sharp Criticisms  And Constant Calls for Reconciliation
His Friends and Colleagues in Struggle

The far away Asian town of Kyaing Tong in eastern Myanmar (Burma) once had little to do with the Eritrean village of Ashera, near Hagaz. But today, the two places can claim something in common: the Burmese town on 14 July 2008 witnessed the sudden death, of massive heart attack, of Dr. Yohannes Ligiam, and small Ashera welcomed a month later his remains for burial at the Jan-Habin cemetery on 12 August 2008.

Yohannes Ligiam Tedros of the Hasri family was born in 1952 at Meblatakh in Ashera, some 30 kms south of Keren. After completing secondary and high school grades in Keren and Asmara as a brilliant kid, Yohannes obtained his medical doctorate from Bologna in Italy and later specialized in tropical disease in Antwerp, Belgium, and mastered community health at Liverpool University.

Throughout the 1970s, Yohannes was among the militant students who gave real life to the activities of the General Union of Eritrean Students (GUES) in Italy. Partly because of him, many Bolognese medical students and politicians became ardent supporters of the Eritrean liberation movement. It was also during the 1970s, while still a student at Bologna that young Yohannes organized medical teams of doctors and nurses who provided surgical and medical treatment to hundreds of victims of war at improvised field hospitals inside areas liberated by the Eritrean Liberation Front, an organization to which he belonged.

Yohannes, as a doctor, educator and humanitarian activist, have in particular had great passion to sympathize with and treat people infected by the new scourge named HIV/AIDS against which he struggled in many places of three diverse continents. The last spot was Burma/Myanmar. His project was located near the Chinese border and it was while in a preparation to fly to a field mission in a remote-placed project that his heart stopped beating. And when the bad news reached his UK-raised daughter, Senet, and his wife, Betty, in London, the first think they could possibly have thought was how much Yohannes loved Eritrea with his birthplace of Meblatakh in Ashera. Yohannes thought that the cruel PFDJ dictatorship that prevented him from visiting home would die before him and always talked to Senet and Betty that his best last days will be spent at home, the “real” home. The wishes were taken up in their literal context by Senet and Betty who insisted to take Yohannes back home, to his real home at Jan-Habin, for eternal rest.   

Besides to Betty, Senet, and the extended family circles, the passing away of Dr. Yohannes Ligiam is a loss to the Eritrean opposition camp to which he belonged and which will miss his many writings calling for sensible action to remove the dictatorship.

The many writings of Dr. Yohannes expressed frustration with the situation in Eritrea after 1991 and the failure of the opposition to become a promising alternative force. For instance, in one of his articles on this subject, Dr. Yohannes wrote: “It is difficult to understand let alone to accept why people who struggled thirty years for freedom and democracy ended up with a dictatorial and with such an opposition not fit for purpose.”

Below, to be read in his memory, are links to two exemplary articles Dr. Yohannes contributed to Eritrean web sites during 2007.

May his soul rest in peace.
Friends and comrades-in-struggle
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June 5, 2007: Eritrea: Establishing an effective opposition
March 13, 2007: Eritrean Democratic Alliance (EDA) Serious blow to people’s hope and faith- Why aren’t we impressed?