Meaza Ambachew tried to stay up and wait for her father to come home late from a meeting on June 19, 2019. His busy schedule often cuts into his family time so much so that she tries to snatch whatever little time she can get with him. That usually means staying up late. By around 11:30 pm, she could not keep her eyes open anymore.

She went to bed, reluctantly. When Ambachew Mekonnen (PhD) finally got home, he did not want to wake her up. Early the next morning he left for Bahir Dar, where his office is located. She will never see him alive again. He was gunned down along with his colleagues, his aide Ezez Wassie and Migbaru Kebede, the region’s attorney general, while chairing a meeting.

Though the family knew there was trouble in Bahir Dar on Saturday, like the rest of the country, they did not know the details of what happened. They learned of his death the next day, early Sunday morning.

"I did not like his new appointment considering the political situation," said Meaza, the second of his five children, recalling her reaction to his latest appointment as the President of the Amhara Regional State. She said it was a source of fear and apprehension to her.

But Ambachew was not one to shy away from challenges. He had joined the struggle against the Dergueregime when he was only in high school. He was a good student by all accounts. But when the rebels came to his village in South Gonder, he did not hesitate to quit school and join the fight. Five years will pass before he could continue his education. He will go on to earn two master's degrees and a PhD in economics.

His cousin, Amsal Getenet, recalls getting a phone call one day, while he was living abroad, from a person he did not know. The voice on the phone told him he was his cousin that had come on a business trip. He had taken the extra assignment of looking for his long-lost cousin who had gone abroad in 1997. The two cousins had never met before, but they were to become close after that. In fact, Amsal says Ambachew persuaded him to move back to Ethiopia from the United States where he was living in political exile.