LONDON: Buckingham Palace on Tuesday said it has declined a request from the family of a 19th century Ethiopian prince to repatriate his remains.
Prince Alemayehu was captured aged seven by the British Army and taken to England in 1868, arriving as an orphan after his mother died en route.
He spent the next decade in Britain, and was looked upon kindly by Queen Victoria, who arranged for his education before his death aged 18 in 1879 from pneumonia.
At the reported request of Queen Victoria, he was entombed in the catacombs of St. George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle, the royal residence west of London.
Ethiopian leaders have previously asked the British royal family for his remains to be returned to his homeland, and his family told the BBC recently that they too had requested the repatriation.
“We want his remains back as a family and as Ethiopians because that is not the country he was born in,” Fasil Minas, one of his descendants, told the British broadcaster.
He said “it was not right” for the prince to remain buried in the UK.
But in a statement, Buckingham Palace said it regretted that due to the need to “preserve the dignity” of others buried at the chapel it had not been possible to agree to the request.
“The Dean and Canons of Windsor are very sensitive to the need to honor the memory of Prince Alemayehu,” it said.
“However, they have been advised that it is very unlikely that it would be possible to exhume the remains without disturbing the resting place of a substantial number of others in the vicinity.”
The statement added that officials had granted requests in recent years from Ethiopian delegations to visit St. George’s and “will continue to do so.”
UK royal family won’t return remains of Ethiopian prince
https://arab.news/rmy4h
UK royal family won’t return remains of Ethiopian prince
- Prince Alemayehu was captured aged seven by the British Army and taken to England in 1868
- Fasil Minas: ‘We want his remains back as a family and as Ethiopians because that is not the country he was born in’
Bangladesh’s religio-political party open to unity govt
- Opinion polls suggest that Jamaat-e-Islami will finish a close second to the Bangladesh Nationalist Party in the first election it has contested in nearly 17 years
DHAKA: A once-banned Bangladeshi religio-political party, poised for its strongest electoral showing in February’s parliamentary vote, is open to joining a unity government and has held talks with several parties, its chief said.
Opinion polls suggest that Jamaat-e-Islami will finish a close second to the Bangladesh Nationalist Party in the first election it has contested in nearly 17 years as it marks a return to mainstream politics in the predominantly Muslim nation of 175 million.
Jamaat last held power between 2001 and 2006 as a junior coalition partner with the BNP and is open to working with it again.
“We want to see a stable nation for at least five years. If the parties come together, we’ll run the government together,” Jamaat chief Shafiqur Rahman said in an interview at his office in a residential area in Dhaka, days after the party created a buzz by securing a tie-up with a Gen-Z party.
Rahman said anti-corruption must be a shared agenda for any unity government.
The prime minister will come from the party winning the most seats in the Feb. 12 election, he added. If Jamaat wins the most seats, the party will decide whether he himself would be a candidate, Rahman said.
The party’s resurgence follows the ousting of long-time Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in a youth-led uprising in August 2024.
Rahman said Hasina’s continued stay in India after fleeing Dhaka was a concern, as ties between the two countries have hit their lowest point in decades since her downfall.
Asked about Jamaat’s historical closeness to Pakistan, Rahman said: “We maintain relations in a balanced way with all.”
He said any government that includes Jamaat would “not feel comfortable” with President Mohammed Shahabuddin, who was elected unopposed with the Awami League’s backing in 2023.
