Leikun Berhanu, Rising from Clerk to Financial Patriarch, Dies at 80

Behind a gate painted grey and black, an unassuming villa sits hushed near the Saris neighbourhood in the southern outskirts of Addis Abeba. On its veranda, two empty chairs stare out at a yard once alive with the noise of children and the measured voice of Leikun Berhanu, the banker who guided the financial sector for half a century. Leikun's rise tracked the country's turbulent politics. In the early 1970s, as Emperor Haile Selassie's reign faltered, he was employed by Addis Abeba Bank, a private bank in the pre-Derg period. Born in Gimbi, Oromia Regional State, in 1945, he graduated in m...

Fikru Maru, Defying Power, Healing Broken Hearts, Dies at 74

When Fikru Maru (MD) returned to Addis Abeba in early May, he carried with him the resolve of a man who had spent decades building bridges between two worlds. Thin but upright, he greeted guests himself at the gate of the new eight-story hospital on Libya Street, a few blocks from Bisrate Gabriel Church. The project had been years in the making, evidence of his vision and persistence. On the eve of the opening, Fikru paused in the pediatric ward. He turned to the head nurse and said, “No child should ever be turned away for lack of money.” Then, reaching into his pocket, he pressed ...

Elizabeth Woldegiorgis, Who Brought Ethiopia's Forgotten Modernists Back to Light, Dies at 69