When Emperor Haile Selassie was overthrown in 1974, his family’s nightmare was only beginning. His grandson was executed without trial in the Massacre of the Sixty. The women of the imperial family were locked in a storage room at one of Ethiopia’s most notorious prisons for 14 years without ever being charged with a crime. His body was buried beneath a toilet in his own palace and not discovered for 17 years. The Crown Prince died in exile in Virginia, crowned Emperor in a London living room but never allowed to set foot in his homeland again.
This is the untold story of what happened to the children, grandchildren, and descendants of Africa’s most powerful monarch after the Derg military junta dissolved a dynasty that traced its lineage back 3,000 years to King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. From the revolution of 1974 to the Red Terror, from exile in London and Washington to the long-delayed funeral in 2000, this is a story of imprisonment, execution, survival, and a family that refused to disappear.
Sources and further reading:
Asfa-Wossen Asserate, “King of Kings: The Triumph and Tragedy of Emperor Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia”
Angelo Del Boca, “The Negus: The Life and Death of the Last King of Kings”
Keith Bowers, “Imperial Exile: Emperor Haile Selassie in Britain 1936-40”
Crown Council of Ethiopia (ethiopiancrown.org)
