LONDON (AP) — The body of a teenage prince captured by British troops will not be returned to his remaining family in East Africa, the British royal family has said, in the latest high-profile dispute over the legacy of their brutal colonial past. .
Buckingham Palace has rejected a repeated request to repatriate the remains of Prince Djatch Alemayehu of Abyssinia, which includes present-day Ethiopia, who was taken from his home at the age of six in 1868 and died just over a decade later in England. .
His body is buried at Windsor Castle, one of the official residences of King Charles III and the traditional site of British royal funerals and weddings.
Alemayehu was driven from Africa after British forces defeated his father and sacked his imperial capital, in one of the most notorious military operations of the British colonial era. Ethiopia has been demanding the return of the prince’s remains and other treasures for the past 150 years.
Fasil Minas, a descendant of the Abyssinian royal family and a relative of Alemayehu, he told the bbc:: «We want his remains as a family and as Ethiopians because that is not the country where he was born.»
But the palace said this week this was not possible because it would disturb other human remains buried nearby.
«The Dean and Canons of Windsor are very sensitive to the need to honor the memory of Prince Alemayehu,» Buckingham Palace said in a statement sent to NBC News on Tuesday.
«However, they have been informed that it is highly unlikely that it will be possible to exhume the remains without disturbing the resting place of a considerable number of people in the surrounding area.»
The Ethiopian embassy in London can continue to visit the tomb to pay its respects, the statement added, but historians said the palace should do more to take responsibility for its past.
«This is such an emotional topic because it reminds everyone of Alemayehu’s plight: a boy trapped in a foreign land, never allowed to return home,» Andrew Heavens, author of new book on Alemayehu and the raid British in Abyssinia entitled «The Prince and the Plunderhe told NBC News.
«Emotionally, most people who come to know Alemayehu’s story feel that his remains should be returned. He made it very clear before he died that he wanted to return.»
The palace could do more to show Ethiopia exactly why the prince’s body cannot be removed, Heavens said.
Alemayehu was the son of the Abyssinian Emperor Tewodros II, a Coptic Christian ruler who had taken missionaries and British government officials captive after Britain refused to help him in wars with neighboring Muslim-majority countries.
In December 1867, Britain launched an expedition of 13,000 soldiers and 40,000 animals, including 44 elephants trained to pull huge artillery guns, according to the National Army Museum in London, to free the hostages.
It took them until April 10 to reach the Abyssinian capital, Maqdala. More than 500 Abyssinians were killed and thousands wounded in a 90-minute battle; some estimates are much higher, and a complete contemporary record does not exist.
Napier’s forces suffered two fatalities and 18 soldiers were wounded. Tewodros committed suicide with a pistol that had been a gift from Queen Victoria.
It took 15 elephants and 200 mules to transport all the wealth that the British looted from Maqdala. Alemayehu’s mother, Empress Tiruwork Wube, intended to travel to England with her son, but she died on the journey.
Queen Victoria took an interest in Alemayehu and arranged for him to study at elite schools, before he was sent to the military training academy at Sandhurst. He left after less than a year for the English city of Leeds, where he died of pleurisy, the inflammation of the lining that surrounds the lungs, at the age of 18 in 1879.
Victoria wrote in her diary: «Very sorry and shocked to learn by telegram that good Alemayehu had passed away this morning. It is too sad! All alone, in a strange country, without a single person or relative belonging to him.»
He was buried in the catacombs of St George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle.
For Jeremiah Garsha, an expert in the looting of human remains at University College Dublin, originally from California, there is no doubt that Prince Alemayehu was stolen.
«He was, he was kidnapped,» he said. «You have a minor who comes to another country as an orphan after his mother dies and then he himself dies at 18, something should feel wrong about that. He was also looted, like all the other curios and treasures that were they took».
The British obsession with Africa at the time created a large market for stolen goods, as well as a thriving slave trade. This curiosity extended from ceremonial shields and religious items to living African blacks.
«You wouldn’t kidnap a white child, Victoria isn’t going to end up with a white child. [London suburb] Camden Town: There has to be a racial element, the foreignness for this prince to come and be in the palace,» Garsha said.
Many of the treasures that were taken stay in the British Museumwho has been discussing the possible return of certain items with Ethiopian officials since 2019.
Several other countries, including Benin and Greece, have long petitioned the British government for the return of items they believe were stolen during the colonial era.