Personal Life
Isaias was born in Asmara, Eritrea, to father Afewerki Abraha from the village of Tselot, Hamasien, Eritrea and mother Adanesh Berhe from Senafe, Akele Guzay, Eritrea. When Isaias was a boy, his father Afewerki spent much of his time in Tembien, Ethiopia where he owned a coffee farm that was later nationalized by the Derg. With Afewerki largely absent, Isaias lived with his mother in a working-class neighborhood in eastern Asmara near the train depot and the Lutheran church. He graduated in 1965 from the elite Prince Makonnen High School in Asmara. Between 1965 and 1966 he attended Haile Selassie University in Addis Ababa (now known as Addis Ababa University) to study engineering. During this time, he left Addis Ababa to join the Eritrean Liberation Front. After disillusionment with that movement, he and several others formed the Eritrean People's Liberation Front. Eventually Eritrea gained their independence and he became the country's first president.
Isaias Afewerki is married to Saba Haile and has three children - Abraham, Elsa and Berhane. He is an adherent of the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church.
In late April 2012, the government denied rumours that Afewerki was dead, stating that he was in "robust health". Information Minister Ali Abdu said the rumours were started by opposition groups. The rumours were proven false after the president made an appearance on Eritrean National Television. He said that those spreading the rumours were "sick" and wanted to "disturb" the people.
Read more about this topic: Isaias Afewerki
Famous quotes containing the words personal and/or life:
“It has no share in the leadership of thought: it does not even reflect its current. It does not create beauty: it apes fashion. It does not produce personal skill: our actors and actresses, with the exception of a few persons with natural gifts and graces, mostly miscultivated or half-cultivated, are simply the middle-class section of the residuum.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“... when you make it a moral necessity for the young to dabble in all the subjects that the books on the top shelf are written about, you kill two very large birds with one stone: you satisfy precious curiosities, and you make them believe that they know as much about life as people who really know something. If college boys are solemnly advised to listen to lectures on prostitution, they will listen; and who is to blame if some time, in a less moral moment, they profit by their information?”
—Katharine Fullerton Gerould (1879–1944)