Ethiopia may seek return of 19th-century child prince’s body from Britain

ADDIS ABABA, April 22 (AFP) — Ethiopia may soon demand the repatriation of the remains of an 19th-century prince who died in Britain after being spirited away by invading British troops, a senior official said Friday.

Encouraged by its success in winning the return from Italy of the stolen third-century BC Axum obelisk, Ethiopia is hoping other European countries will send back similarly plundered pieces of its heritage, including the body of the prince, the official said.

“Prince Alemayu is still in Great Britain,” Deputy Information Minister Netsannet Asfaw said. “I would like to get the body back.”

She said she was not making an official request but felt it was now time for the prince, who was taken to Britain at the age of eight in 1868 after the overthrow of his father emperor Theodor of Ethiopia, to come home.

“As a mother, I think he should come home,” she said. “He was a child when he died and he was far away from his country.”

Prince Alemayu was taken to London by British troops after they had sacked the country’s old capital of Maqdala and overthrown emperor Theodor who committed suicide to avoid being taken captive.

He contracted pneumonia and died in 1878 and was buried in Windsor Castle where his body still lies.

Netsannet said Ethiopians, who are currently celebrating the return of the Axum obelisk — the third and final piece of which is to be flown back the country from Rome on Monday — should be equally concerned about the prince.

“People give a lot of importance to artefacts, but in this case it is a human being,” she said.

Richard Pankhurst, a leading scholar on Ethiopian history in Addis Ababa, said during his time in Britain, Alemayu had frequently expressed a desire to return home but was refused.

“He wanted to come back to Ethiopia, but the British government didn’t encourage him to do so,” he said, adding that bringing back the remains would be “a continuation of his own wish to come back.”