Following the Yekatit 12 massacre of 1937, fascist authorities carried out widespread arrests targeting nobles, intellectuals, military leaders, clergy, and community figures considered capable of resisting colonial rule. Hundreds of Ethiopians were forcibly removed from their homeland and exiled to detention camps and prisons throughout Italy, including the island penal colony of Asinara in Sardinia.
Many of these prisoners never returned home. Others returned years later carrying memories that were painful, incomplete, or difficult to communicate. Their stories became dispersed across archives in Italy and Ethiopia, or survived only as fragments of memoirs, family recollections, and long silences. For generations, descendants often knew only that a father, grandfather, uncle, or ancestor had disappeared during the occupation or had died somewhere in exile. In many cases there were no graves, no records, and no public acknowledgment of what had occurred.
Through archival research in Italy and Ethiopia, cross-referenced with memoirs, testimonies, and family records, we are gradually reconstructing the circumstances of the arrests, the conditions of exile, and the fates of those who were imprisoned .
Each name recovered, each document uncovered, and each testimony gathered helps restore a fuller understanding of this largely forgotten chapter of Ethiopian and Italian history.