Rusom Okubamichael escaped his home country, Eritrea, by making the long, dangerous walk to a refugee camp in Ethiopia.
But he couldn’t survive the walk across a street in Tucson.
Now his big refugee family is left without its only breadwinner, with a sixth child on the way.
Okubamichael, 46, died after being hit by a car Nov. 2. He was one of three people struck by cars in that same stretch of North First Avenue, between East Fort Lowell Road and East Prince Road, in a one-week period. Two were on foot — the other pedestrian survived — and one was a bicyclist who died.
Witness statements suggested that Okubamichael was to blame for the collision, and the driver was not cited. After having a beer at the Boondocks Lounge, but without being drunk, Okubamichael tried to cross North First Avenue to go to his home a couple of blocks east on East Navajo Street.
As an occasional jaywalker myself, I can see why he tried it: Navajo is directly across North First Avenue from the Boondocks, and the nearest crosswalk is a block south, on Fort Lowell. But it was a bad choice, of course, especially after dark. He made it to the universal left-turn lane in the middle of the road, then mistimed the next leg of the crossing and was clipped by a Honda Civic, landing hard on the pavement.
Now his wife and five kids are left bereft in an unfamiliar country at Christmas time.
Not that Christmas in Eritrea is anything like it is in the United States. I spoke with Atsede Shishay, Okubamichael’s widow, through translator Amanuel Gebremariam last week. Gebremariam, himself a refugee who arrived in the 1980s, told me Christmas is a simple religious holiday for the nearly half of Eritreans who are Christian, nothing like the feast of materialism we celebrate in the United States.
That’s not surprising, considering conditions in the country north of Ethiopia on the Red Sea. For decades, Eritreans fought for independence from Ethiopia, a civil war that caused its own flood of refugees like Gebremariam, now owner of two Zemam’s restaurants in Tucson. In the 1980s, Okubamichael was one of the fighters for the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front, which in 1991 won independence from Ethiopia.
After a 1993 referendum, Eritrea began life as an independent state but soon started driving a new wave of its citizens, like Okubamichael, out of the country. President Isaias Afewerki took office that year for what was to be a five-year term as the country’s first president, but he’s never left office. In the meantime, he’s taken dictatorial powers, fought wars with neighboring countries and imposed a policy of indefinite conscription on citizens.
“Torture, arbitrary detention, and severe restrictions on freedom of expression, association, and religious freedom remain routine in Eritrea,” Human Rights Watch says. “In addition to ongoing serious human-rights abuses, forced labor and indefinite military service prompt thousands of Eritreans to flee the country every year.”
Okubamichael left about 11 years ago, walking, as almost all Eritrean refugees do, a gantlet of dangers, including soldiers, bandits and wild animals. Last year, a United Nations investigator accused the government of having a “shoot-to-kill” policy against people fleeing the country.
Okubamichael and Shishay lived in a grass hut in the Shimelba, Ethiopia, refugee camp for nine years, Shishay told me at their apartment Wednesday. Finally, they arrived in Tucson in 2012 — a welcome change.
“I could not even compare it. There, we did not get enough to eat, the rations couldn’t feed us” she said, speaking in the Tigrinya language translated by Gebremariam. In Tucson, she added, “Above all, we got all the peace we need.”
Okubamichael even had a decent job, working at the JW Marriott Starr Pass Resort & Spa as a a bus boy. That helped pay for a small, sparsely furnished apartment on East Navajo Road where their five children, ages three through 20, also live. As we spoke, three-year-old Robel did his three-year-old thing, climbing the furniture, grabbing cookies, smiling and hiding. A small Christmas tree stood in the corner.
The night of the crash, Shishay was surprised when Okubamichael didn’t come home. Then a Tucson police officer arrived to tell her he was at the hospital in a coma. He never awoke from the damage caused when his head hit the pavement, and he officially died Nov. 12.
So far this year, 10 pedestrians and five bicyclists have been killed by vehicles within city limits, Tucson police report. That’s fewer pedestrians than were killed last year but more bicyclists. The woman struck Nov. 6 on North First Avenue was in a crosswalk, and the driver was cited. Her case isn’t included in those figures because she survived.
On Nov. 1, the night before Okubamichael was killed, a Tucson police officer struck and killed bicyclist Francisco Galvez in the same area. That case remains under investigation by TPD’s internal-affairs office, Sgt. Pete Dugan said.
“The jaywalking from Fort Lowell to Prince is unbelievable,” said Cathy Warner, co-owner of the Boondocks. “Families risk life and limb to take their groceries home. The cars also go way too fast.”
Employees at the bar recognized Okubamichael as a quiet man who was an occasional customer — not a regular or anyone who got drunk or into trouble, Warner said.
“He would just come in, have a beer and leave,” she said.
You can imagine the desire for a moment away from work and family responsibilities. But when Okubamichael crossed the street, and the car hit him and his head hit the pavement of North First Avenue, the humble dreams of his refugee family were dashed.
“With the small amount he was generating, we were happy,” Shishay said. “All of a sudden, we lost everything we had.”
