Desta Gebeyehu (PhD) entered the Arat Kilo Campus of Addis Abeba University on April 24, 2007, looking forward to evaluate group assignments he gave to his third-year "education physics" students. Two among his 69 students made their presentation on "heat and thermodynamics" that morning, writing on the blackboard, inside classroom number 302, in the Freshman Building. 
 

He called on Ahmed Abdurahman, a 21-year student and native of Bedessa, 363Km east of Addis Abeba, toward the town of Harar. Unable to hear a response, he was prompted to call another student, Afework, to come to the front. Then, from the back, Ahmed appeared, walking slowly to the blackboard, according to students who were in the classroom. Looking weak and exhausted, he had tried his best, though for not more than a minute.
 

"It was a shocking and sad scene," Desta recalls.
 

Ahmed collapsed in front of all his classmates and fell on the ground; four of his classmates took him right away to a clinic inside the campus, found only 20 metres from the class. He was admitted by a sister named Zeritu and registered to have lost consciousness for a period of five minutes. His blood pressure (BP) was un-recordable on arrival at 9:25a.m, Seman Kedir, a nurse at the campus clinic told Fortune, after examining the medical record of the student.
 

"At that stage, he could not have been treated at a level of clinic," said Seman. "We automatically transferred him to the Black Lion Hospital."
 

Patients at that stage could probably be alive, such as in cases of severe diarrhoea combined with vomiting that lead to dehydration or massive bleeding due to accidents, according to Ephraim Abera (GP) at the Black Lion Hospital.
 

"It is a patient that needs to get immediate hospitalisation," he told Fortune. "But in this case, he might have probably died the moment his BP stops."
 

Officials at the Black Lion Hospital were not cooperative with this newspaper to disclose at what time the patient had arrived. However, a student who accompanied the patient to the Hospital, who declined to identify himself for fear of potential arrest, told Fortune that Ahmed was pronounced dead upon arrival, the same morning on April 24.
 

The body was taken, the same day, to the Menelik Hospital for post mortal examination by police officers from the Arada District. According to a lawyer, Ethiopia's criminal procedure - No 1/54 Article 34/2 - mandated police to take the deceased to a certified physician to find out why the person has died or whether any crime was committed; the hospital that performs an autopsy is obliged to issue a medical testimonial to police disclosing what caused the death.
 

The only medical centre in Ethiopia that has performed autopsies for the past 50 years is Menelik Hospital. Although there are two types of autopsies - clinical or medico legal - conducted elsewhere, Menelik Hospital does only the latter type when requested by police or close relatives of the deceased, according to Nega Legese (MD), medical director of the Hospital.
 

"We received a death confirmed body for post mortal examination," Nega told Fortune. "Despite a strong demand from a few students to take a photograph of the deceased, we stopped them due to cultural sensitivities."
 

The hospital released the body to the officials of the University the next day, while the autopsy result was handed out to police. It pronounced the cause of death as "heart failure", according to Girma Kassa (Commander), head of the Criminal Investigation Department at the Addis Abeba Police Commission.
 

"His heart related problems existed for a long time," Girma told Fortune.
 

Ahmed's body was delivered by 11 police officers from Addis Abeba to the town of Adama (Nazareth) on April 25. It was his father, Abdurahman Bakri, a 75-year old man who sells knifes and Mencha to farmers in his village, Kebele 01, Bedesa town, who received the body and it was there that the funeral took place, on April 26, at 1:00pm.
 

"The police members who brought me the body of my son told me that they did not know what killed him," Abdurahman told Fortune. "He was my hope. I am a poor man; if it was not for the contribution from the villagers, I could not have afforded to transport his remains to where he is buried."
 

Sadly, Ahmed's case did not stop with his burial in this small town of Bedesa. The news of his sudden death shocked the university community, igniting fire among students from Arat Kilo and Sidst Kilo campuses. Many had gathered on April 25 and demanded to see the President of the University, Andreas Eshete (PhD), claiming that the hospital that had performed the autopsy was into "organ harvesting", a practice in the medical world of taking out organs from one body and transplanting it into another patient.
 

At the beginning, the President requested to see representatives of the students protesting. Then he suggested his deputies meet them.
 

He had wanted them to enter into Mekonnen Hall in order to talk to them. This was to their liking.   
 

"They did not flinch from their demand to see him in the open," said a University staffer.

When they finally met him, they told him that the "organ of the student has been taken and sold without the knowledge and consent of his family."
 

"We have asked the money gained from the sales of the organ of our late friend to be given to his family," a third-year student, who wanted to remain anonymous, told Fortune.
 

Students were not interested to listen to what Andrias and the University's medical personnel instructor had to say about how and why autopsies are performed. They were in a "hot mood", according to Andrias.
 

Nega of Menelik Hospital told Fortune a dead body has organs with unviable tissues.
 

"Organs of a dead body can not be taken and transplanted to a live body," said Nega.
 

His argument is supported by a Urologist at Black Lion Hospital who told Fortune that organ harvesting is not taking place in Ethiopia due to lack of facilities. To move an organ from one place to another, it requires a deep freeze icebox and precaution, in which the organ can survive through mechanical blood circulation, said the Urologist.
 

A Urologist is a physician who has specialised knowledge and skill regarding problems of kidneys, the male and female urinary tract and the male reproductive organs.
 

"It is not the legal medical personnel (Pathologist) who picks organs for transplantation," said the Urologist at Black Lion. "It is a Urologist who takes the organ and transplants it, but after several examinations being done, on the alive donor as well as the receiver. Neither the facility nor precaution exist in our country."
 

There was also another twist to the protest that had a more religious base. Some of them were against the conduct of autopsy, claiming that Islam prohibits such practice on the dead, according to Ahmed Temam, a second-year student at Arat Kilo Campus.
 

"It is forbidden in our religion to open a dead body," he told Fortune.
 

According to Girma, however, it is in the authority of the police to identify causes of sudden deaths through medical investigation.
 

It was too late last week to inform all this to the students who were in a "hot mood". They had resolved to stage a two-day hunger strike, being adamant on their demands.
 

Their attempt was far from being free from violence. According to several eye witnesses, the first day's infrequent protests, due to rain, led to members of federal police surrounding the students at both campuses. They were observed to be restrained in spite of repeated provocations from the students, according to a freelance reporter who was at the scene.
 

"I was amazed to see how disciplined they were the first day," this reporter told Fortune.
 

The second day was different. An attempt by a few of the students to enter the University canteen, against the hunger strike, led to a confrontation with those determined to stand firm by their decision; inevitably, an intra-student fight along ethnic lines, employing sticks and stones, erupted and continued to intensify during the third day, April 28.
 

Numerous students were admitted to the Yekatit 12 and Black Lion hospitals with several ambulances busy transporting them. Members of the federal police intervened to put the fight under control, thus using force in the process. According to eye witnesses, many students were beaten and subsequently arrested, the latter include close friends of Ahmed.
 

The University was like a ghost town, although extension and post-graduate classes were open even in the midst of the rebellion.
 

"How could we attend class, while many of our friends are under custody, mistreated and the University does not wish to address our issues," said a third-year female student at the Sedest Kilo Campus.
 

Police declined to disclose the number of students that remain under custody, even to the University. Nevertheless, Commander Girma told Fortune many were released last week, while few were still under investigation until our press time on Friday, May 4.
 

"Our investigation revealed to us that the cause of the students' protest is not lack of awareness that human organs can not be transplanted from a dead body," Girma told Fortune.
 

He believes that to the strike was only an excuse for other underlying reasons. Neither was he convinced the students put such claims out of ignorance or lack of understanding about autopsy procedures.
 

Whatever the students' motive for protest, Andrias said, he waits patiently for regular class to begin and "things to get settled down" in order to make the autopsy result public to the University community.
 

"I have also decided to send it [the result] to his family," Andrias told Fortune. 
 

Students have begun to come to classes as of Wednesday, May 2, with a string presence of the most feared members of the federal police. According to a senior staffer of the University, they remained there following demands from students representing the various warring factions, although Fortune was unable to confirm from the students the validity of this assertion.
 

Staffers, however, wonder how long the federal police intend to stay inside the campuses.