Book Description

Tekeste Fekadu's The Tenacity and Resilience of Eritrea chronicles his country's armed struggle for independence from 1979 -1983 from the standpoint of an Eritrean war surgeon, continuing the story he began in his previous, much acclaimed account of the war from 1976 - 1979, Journey from Nakfa to Nakfa. Offering frontline, graphic eyewitness testimony of the massive and unrelenting sacrifice of human lives that the war demanded, Tekeste Fekadu also tells a compelling story of a physician's war to save them. He and his colleagues battled their terrible injuries, diseases and psychological suffering as tenaciously as the vastly outnumbered Eritrean armed forces fought six, large-scale Ethiopian military offensives - yet with as few precious resources. He established what was unprecedented on any previous African battlefield: effective, comprehensive and compassionate medical care - whether it required the setting up or tearing down of hospitals on the frontlines or the most delicate surgery and intensive care in trenches and underground wards under bombardment. Also dedicating himself to combating the array of problems suffered by Eritrea's equally unprecedented dependence on a female fighting force, Tekeste Fekadu fought for the recognition of women's unique health issues, ranging from the reproductive cycle to the challenge of negative sexual stereotypes. In a world in which the annals of war are many and often remarkable, Tekeste Fakudu's personal story of Eritrea's armed struggle is inimitable.