Issayas Yrgaw is a man with an extraordinary story. He was born in Asmara to Tigrayan parents in the 1960s. When he was 15, Ethiopian forces barged into the family house and shot dead his father in front of the horrified eyes of the rest of the family members in an act of retaliation after a colonel was killed in the city by rebels.
His mother bravely smuggled him out of Asmara fearing that it was no longer safe for her child. Issayas trekked all the way to Sudan, and after a brief and eventful stay at a refugee camp, he went to Italy, where he finished high school, before moving on to the UK for medical school. He is now a surgeon in the United States.
He recounts the story of his father and that of his own in his book titled The Tigrayan Electrician. (Available on Amazon.)
Below is our conversation based on the book.
About Issayas:
Issayas Yrgaw Bahta was born in Eritrea, East Africa. During the Eritrean war of independence, he witnessed the killing of his father by Ethiopian government soldiers. He was fifteen years old. He escaped through wilderness and war zones to reach a refugee camp in the bordering country of the Sudan. His search for safety and a better future led him to Italy two years later where he completed high school. He was finally granted refugee status in the United Kingdom where he won a scholarship to study medicine and fulfill a lifetime dream of becoming a physician. He received his medical degree from the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom and completed his surgical training in the United States. “The Tigrayan Electrician – Memories of my Father and His Beloved Motherland” is his first book detailing the tragic loss of his father and his flight to safety.
