By Marc Champion and Nizar Manek, August 2 2019
(Bloomberg)--
The day Simegnew Bekele was found dying at the wheel of his Toyota Land Cruiser in central Addis Ababa—doors locked, engine running and a bullet wound to his head—he had left home holding a plane ticket and a packed bag.
The plan on that July afternoon a year ago was to return to the construction site of the vast hydroelectric dam that Simegnew had been overseeing since 2011, according to his mother-in-law, Membere Mekonnen. The project on the Nile had made its chief engineer a national hero. His was the public face of plans for a new Ethiopia that would no longer be known for famines and war, but as Africa’s powerhouse—literally.
Membere, like many Ethiopians, still doesn’t believe the police finding of suicide. “Why do you buy a ticket and pack your bag to go, if you are going to shoot yourself?” the 72-year-old said in an interview at her home in the capital, where she now cares for the youngest two of the three children he left behind.
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https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2019-nile-river-ethiopia-dam/