Italians of Ethiopia
Italo-etiopi ( Italian Mozambicans, Italian Somalis, Italian South Africans, Italian Tunisians, Italian Zimbabweans |
---|
Italians of Ethiopia (Italian: Italo-etiopi, also called Italian Ethiopians) are Ethiopian-born citizens who are fully or partially of Italian descent, whose ancestors were Italians who emigrated to Ethiopia starting in the 19th century during the Italian diaspora, or Italian-born people in Ethiopia.
Most of the Italians moved to Ethiopia after the
History
The 1880s were marked by the so-called "Scramble for Africa" and the
Conflicts between the two countries resulted in the
Victory was announced on 9 May 1936 and Mussolini declared the creation of the "Italian Empire". The Italians merged Eritrea, Italian Somalia, and newly occupation Ethiopia into Italian East Africa (Africa Orientale Italiana, A.O.I.). Among the war crimes committed under the orders of Mussolini was the robbing of one of the so-called Axum Obelisks[6](properly termed a 'stele' or, in the local Afro-Asiatic languages, hawelt/hawelti as its form is not topped by a pyramid).
The Italian King Victor Emmanuel III added Emperor of Ethiopia to his titles, a title not welcomed by the many nations that were part of the society of the nations.[7]
From 1936 to the start of World War II Mussolini controlled much of Ethiopia, but a guerrilla war raged in areas of Ethiopia still controlled by Ethiopian resistance fighters linked to Haile Selassie (who was exiled in Great Britain) and the royal family remaining in Ethiopia, including the efforts of Ras Imru Haile Selassie who was captured on December 19, 1936 and taken to prison on the Island of Ponza until freed after the Armistice of Cassibile[8]
Italian occupation
Since 1 June 1936 Italian Ethiopia was part of the newly created
Italian Ethiopia had an area of 790,000 square kilometres (305,000 sq mi) and a population of 9,450,000 inhabitants, resulting in a density of 12 inhabitants per square kilometre (31/sq mi)[9]
Governorate | Capital | Total population | Italians[10] | Car Tag | Coat of Arms |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Amhara Governorate | Gondar | 2,000,000 | 11,103 | AM | |
Harrar Governorate |
Harar | 1,600,000 | 10,035 | HA | |
Galla-Sidamo Governorate | Jimma | 4,000,000 | 11,823 | GS | |
Scioa Governorate | Addis Ababa | 1,850,000 | 40,698 | SC |
Only 3,200 Italian farmers moved to colonize rural areas, mainly because of the threat of violence from the Arbegnoch, who controlled as much as one quarter of the Ethiopian Highlands in 1940.[11]
There was substantial investment in Ethiopian infrastructure development, with the budget for AOI from 1936 to 1937 requiring 19,136 billion
Italians also created new airports and in 1936 started the worldwide famous
After World War II
After WWII, some Italian Ethiopians remained in the country, until the overthrow of the Emperor Haile Selassie in the Ethiopian Civil War in 1974;[15] nearly 22,000 Italo-Ethiopians took refuge in Italy during the 1970s.[15] Their main organization in Italy is the Associazione Italiana Profughi dall'Etiopia ed Eritrea (A.I.P.E.E.).[16]
Contemporary relations
In the mid-1990s despite a previous arrangement with the Dergue regime under Menghistu in the 1970s to cede the Obelisk of Axum to Italy in exchange for medical facilities and forgiving an accumulated debt to the Italian government, a populist movement made up of Italians and Ethiopians (both in country and expatriates around the world) began to petition the then current Italian government to return the obelisk,[17] an event which eventually culminated in its repatriation in 2005 to Axum, the city of its creation.[18]
In the 2000s, some Italian companies have returned to operate in Ethiopia, and a large number of Italian technicians and managers arrived with their families, residing mainly in the metropolitan area of the capital.[19] In 2010, there were over 2,000 Ethiopians of Italian descent, while there were around 1,400 Italian citizens.
Ethiopia has the largest concentration of Italian schools and cultural institutes in Africa (such as the
Notable immigrants
- Luciano Violante, judge and politician
- Luciano Vassallo, Ethiopian footballer and coach of Eritrean and Italian origin
- Italo Vassallo, footballer of Ethiopia national team
- Gabriella Ghermandi, writer and singer
See also
Notes
- ^ Italian Addis Abeba
- ^ "ERITREA, COLONIA" (in Italian). Retrieved 19 January 2023.
- ^ "Regno d'Italia e Impero d'Etiopia siglano la pace con il trattato di Addis Abeba il 26 ottobre 189" (in Italian). Retrieved 19 January 2023.
- ISBN 9780875866475.
- ^ "WMD – UNODA". www.un.org. Retrieved 2018-04-10.
- ^ "To Rome and back: The return of an obelisk", Lena Blosat, 2005
- ^ Detailed map of Italian Ethiopia in 1936 (click to enlarge)[permanent dead link]
- ^ "HyperWar: US Army in WWII: Sicily and the Surrender of Italy [Chapter 29]". www.ibiblio.org. Retrieved 2018-04-10.
- JSTOR 25642850.
- ^ Istat Statistiche 2010
- ^ "Ethiopia - Economy".
- ^ Cannistraro, Philip (1982). Historical Dictionary of Fascist Italy. Middle English Edition. p. 5.
- ^ "Article on the special road Addis Abeba-Assab and map (in Italian)" (PDF). 1940. Archived from the original (PDF) on 29 March 2016. Retrieved 28 September 2019.
- ^ "AFRICA in "Enciclopedia Italiana"". www.treccani.it.
- ^ a b Photos and articles of Italoethiopians who took refuge in Italy Archived 2017-02-11 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ "Associazione Italiana Profughi dall'Etiopia ed Eritrea (AIPEE)". Archived from the original on 2016-03-03. Retrieved 2015-01-09.
- ^ Chicago Tribune,March 10, 2002 "Ethiopia Again Demands Italy Return Obelisk"
- ^ The Guardian, 20 April, 2005 "Obelisk returned to Ethiopia after 68 years"
- ^ "I servizi demografici". Dipartimento per gli affari interni e territoriali. 25 November 2016.
- ^ Italian Cultural Institute of Addis Ababa
- ^ Grand Renaissance Dam Project in Ethiopia
- ^ Ethiopia steams ahead with vision for a modern national rail network. February 17 2015. Retrieved January 8 2022.
- ^ MIT Country Profile - Ethiopia: Trading Partners
Bibliography
- Antonicelli, Franco. Trent'anni di storia italiana 1915 - 1945. Mondadori ed. Torino, 1961
- Blitzer, Wolf. Century of War. Friedman/Fairfax Publishers. New York, 2001 ISBN 1-58663-342-2
- Del Boca, Angelo. Italiani in Africa Orientale: La conquista dell'Impero, Laterza, Roma-Bari 1985. ISBN 8842027154
- Del Boca, Angelo. Italiani in Africa Orientale: La caduta d'Impero, Laterza, Roma-Bari 1986. ISBN 884202810X
- Labanca, Nicola. Oltremare. Storia dell'espansione coloniale italiana. Il Mulino. Bologna, 2007. ISBN 8815120386
- Rosselli, Alberto. Storie Segrete. Operazioni sconosciute o dimenticate della seconda guerra mondiale. Iuculano Editore. Pavia, 2007.
- Sbiacchi, Alberto. Hailé Selassié and the Italians, 1941-43. African Studies Review, vol.XXII, n.1, April 1979.