LAGOS, Nigeria (VOICE OF NAIJA)-Buckingham Palace have reportedly declined to return the remains of an orphaned Ethiopian prince buried at Windsor Castle 144 years ago.
According to Mail Online, the British took Prince Alemayehu to the UK when he was seven, having laid siege to his family’s fortress in Ethiopia.
The boy’s father, Emperor Tewodros II, killed himself after the defeat and his mother died on their voyage to London.
Queen Victoria took an interest in the orphaned prince’s well-being, paying for his education and, in the end, his burial in the royal catacombs of St George’s Chapel.
His modern-day relatives have requested the Prince’s body be sent back home to Ethiopia.
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The prince’s family told the BBC it was “not right” for the Ethiopian to be lying in the UK.
“We want his remains back as a family and as Ethiopians because that is not the country he was born in,” one of the royal descendants, Fasil Minas, said.
However, Buckingham Palace told the BBC that trying to exhume his remains would disturb other bodies.
“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 palace said.
The statement said chapel authorities had “the responsibility to preserve the dignity of the departed”.
The Royal Household had also accommodated requests from Ethiopian delegations to visit the chapel.