The State Department has announced that a U.S. diplomat, Brian Adkins, was killed in Ethiopia on Saturday, Reuters reports.
"The death is under investigation and we are coordinating closely with the government of Ethiopia," said a State Department official, who asked not to be named as the department had not officially released details of the death.
Another official said it was a suspected homicide and that U.S. diplomatic security were looking into the incident.
It also reports that Adkins, 25, was on his first foreign assignment for the State Department.
Adkins graduated summa cum laude from George Washington University as an international affairs major in 2005, reported the school newspaper, the Hatchet.
Though Adkins' father could not be reached for comment, senior Michael Geremia, one of Adkins' best friends, described the Ohio native as "selfless, hardworking, confident, funny, charming, articulate, a scholar and a gentleman."
"The world has lost someone who had so much to offer. I miss him tremendously," Geremia said. "When I received word of his death on Monday, which would have been his 26th birthday, a piece of me died in Ethiopia."