1. Tetsu Nakamura was devoted to building canal projects, from the Kunar River in eastern Afghanistan and was credited with transforming the desert of Gamberi, on the outskirts of Jalalabad, into lush forest and productive wheat farmland.
19 Facts About Tetsu Nakamura
1. 2.
On 4 December 2019, as Tetsu Nakamura was heading to work in his aid vehicle in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, he was assassinated by gunmen along with his bodyguards and driver.
3.
Tetsu Nakamura was born in Fukuoka, a city in Fukuoka Prefecture on the northern shore of the Japanese island Kyushu.
4.
Tetsu Nakamura spent his early childhood in Wakamatsu, where both of his parents were born and raised.
5.
Hino's novel Flowers and Dragons was adapted into film while Tetsu Nakamura was in elementary school.
6.
Tetsu Nakamura was baptized by a Christian missionary at the Kasumigaoka Baptist Church while attending junior high school.
7.
Tetsu Nakamura graduated from Kyushu University School of Medicine in 1973.
8.
Tetsu Nakamura was drawn there to pursue his love of mountain climbing and his hobby of collecting insects.
9.
At the request of Pakistan's Ministry of Tourism, Tetsu Nakamura provided medical care to residents near the remote mountaineering base, which was located in the vicinity of Peshawar, Pakistan.
10.
Tetsu Nakamura treated many patients suffering from tuberculosis and leprosy, which he attributed to malnutrition and poverty in the area.
11.
Tetsu Nakamura initially intended to stay in Peshawar for five to six years.
12.
Tetsu Nakamura drew inspiration from the irrigation canals that had been built in his native Fukuoka more than 200 years ago, without the aid of modern equipment.
13.
Tetsu Nakamura built or restored eight additional canals, irrigating 16,000 hectares and supporting the livelihood of 600,000 people in the Gamberi desert on the outskirts of Jalalabad in Nangarhar Province.
14.
Tetsu Nakamura was fatally shot in a targeted killing on 4 December 2019 in Jalalabad, Afghanistan.
15.
Police said that Tetsu Nakamura, while sitting in the front passenger seat, was shot with five bullets at close range from above.
16.
Tetsu Nakamura remained conscious after the attack and received treatment at a local hospital in Jalalabad, but bled to death at Jalalabad Airport as he was being prepared to be airlifted to a hospital at Bagram Airfield, a US military base located 50 kilometres north of Kabul.
17.
One of Tetsu Nakamura's Japanese colleagues, Kazuya Ito, who was an agricultural specialist working on the construction of irrigation channels in the Kuz Kunar District of Afghanistan's Nangarhar Province, had previously been abducted and killed by the Taliban militants in 2008 as he was on his way to an irrigation project's site in the area.
18.
Tetsu Nakamura's murder sent "shocks of grief" across Afghanistan and Japan, and drew widespread condemnation.
19.
On October 2022 a plaza commemorating Tetsu Nakamura opened in Jalalabad, Nangarhar province.