President Isaias Afewerkis

President Isaias Afwerki is the current president of Eritrea, he was born on February 2, 1946 in Asmara, Eritrea.
At the age of 19 he was sent to the elite prince Makonnen secondary high school in Asmara, where he graduated in 1965. He went on to attend Haile Selassie University in Addis Ababa to study engineering from 1965-66

In late 1966, at the age of 20, he abandoned his engineering studies in Addis Ababa and left for Kassala, Sudan, where he joined the Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF) in exile. Isaias described the Eritrean students political thoughts and sentiments to the historian and author Don Connel as:
Most of the active students were organized in clandestine groups. Emotionally and sentimentally, everyone was with the ELF. You never knew who was from what tribe or from what religion because there was not even a hint of that kind of thinking.
Against all odds: a chronicle of the Eritrean revolution, by Dan Connell, p. 79
However, after entering the Sudan, his sentiments towards the ELF leadership changed.
Despite his critical opinions of the ELF leadership, Isaias stayed committed to the group and even still carries a tattooed letter E on his right shoulder as a symbol of his youthful exuberance from this period which symbolized the ELF (1997, Dan Connell, p.80). In early 1967, Isaias and Romadan were selected to study military training course in China. They spent that year and most of next year in China studying political ideologies and gurrelia warfare (1997, Dan Connell, p.80). Isaias described these early times with the following quote:
Isaias Afwerki in the early 1970s
I remember when we got back from China, said Isaias later. It was the peak of politics within the ELF. The talk of reform was everywhere. Everyone trained in Syria and elsewhere joined hands. There were all sorts of revolutionary ideas. We had high hopes in those days. The reform movement was so strong that I wouldn't have imagined it could be frustrated in a few months, but it was infiltrated, and survival was not possible.
Against all odds: a chronicle of the Eritrean revolution, by Dan Connell, p.80
Many of Isaias closest friends describe him as an intelligent, and fiercely guarded man with a no nonsense attitude. One of Isaias foreign critics described him as: Imposingly tall, fiercely intelligent, naturally austere, he had chosen his path early in life, rebelling against a father who was a committed Unionist. (2005, Michela Wrong, p. 373).
Before I went to Sudan, the ELF was something like a magic organization to me maybe some kind of fairy tale but the first day I arrived I became frustrated. People began telling me about the ugly nature of the ELF, and Kassala became a nightmare for me. For some reason we were ostracized, even accused of being agents for the Ethiopians. Very narrow considerations of clan, tribe and religion were the basis for surviving or not surviving. We were living in an atmosphere of terror, where we had to go in groups, especially at dusk, to look after each other. It was definitely an awkward situation after all those years of fighting for this organization.
Against all odds: a chronicle of the Eritrean revolution, by Dan Connell, p.79
In 1970, disagreements within ELF led to three factions leaving the ELF into three separate groups. One faction took refuge in the mountains of Sahel. Another group under Isaias command, numbering less than a dozen, left for Eritrea's eastern escarpment. While the third group headed off to Aden and returned by boat to Eritrea, landing south of Assab. These three groups would eventually join to become one and went by the name of the Eritrean Liberation Front-People's Liberation Front (ELF-PLF). When they formally merged in 1973, they changed their name to the Eritrean Peoples Liberation Front.
Under ELF-PLF and EPLF
In 1971, using a type writer, Isaias wrote a manifesto called Our Struggle and its Goals(1997, Dan Connell, p.83). This manifesto placed strong emphasis on overcoming ethnic and religious differences and on launching revolutionary struggle during the independence war (1997, Dan Connell, p.83). In 1975, Isaias became chairman of the EPLF military committee. In 1977, under EPLF's first congress, he was elected to be vice secretary-general of the EPLF. A decade later in 1987, he became the secretary-general of the EPLF. From 1989 to 1993, Isaias had served as the secretary-general of the provisional government of Eritrea. In 1993, after achieving de-jure independence, Isaias was elected by the Eritrean assembly to be president.
Isaias being treated for malaria at an Israeli hospital in 1993
On January 7, 1993, just a few months before referendum for independence were to take place, Iasias went into a coma and almost lost his life when he was stricken with a severe case of cerebral malaria. He was immediately flown by the US Air Force to Israel for treatment