page_title: Zerai Deres
section_title: Repatriation of remains
hierarchical_section_title: Zerai Deres / Biography / Repatriation of remains
caption_attribution_description: Italiano: Lettera di Tesfazion Deres all'imperatore Hailè Selasiè. Il fratello dell'eroe nazionale eritreo Zerai Deres riteneva che questi stesse bene e vivo in una prigione in Italia. Tesfazion Deres e altri eritrei interessati contattarono il ministro degli affari esteri Ambaye Wolde Mariam al fine di presentare il caso di Zerai Deres alla Corte Imperiale dell'Etiopia. Il fratello scrisse questa lettera personale indirizzata all'Imperatore dell'Etiopia, nella quale riportava che alcune fonti gli avevano riferito che Zerai Deres era stato ferito da arma da fuoco nel 1938, ma non era morto; al contrario era detenuto in un carcere italiano, a Messina in Sicilia. Tesfazion chiese allora che l'imperatore gli mettesse a disposizione un aereo per andare in Italia e riportare a casa suo fratello.
context_page_description: Zerai Deres was an Eritrean translator and patriot. In 1938, he engaged in an act of public devotion to an important symbol of his native country, the Monument to the Lion of Judah, at the time kept in Rome. When interrupted, he violently protested against Italian colonialism while brandishing a scimitar, which led to his arrest and internment in a psychiatric hospital for seven years, until his death. However, contemporary Italian historians doubt the claim that he was mentally unstable. Zerai's protest, lionized after the end of the Second World War, is considered by Eritrean and Ethiopian historiography as part of the movement against Italian occupation. To this day, Zerai is considered a legend and a folk hero of anticolonialism and antifascism both in Eritrea and Ethiopia.
context_section_description: Zerai's brother Tesfazien, founder of the Eritrea Independent Party, thinking that Zerai was still alive in an Italian prison in Italy, wrote a personal letter to the Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie asking to provide an airplane to Italy in order to bring his brother home. Tesfazien also approached the Minister of Foreign Affairs Ambaye Wolde Mariam to present the case to the Imperial Palace, initially without success.
  Finally, Tesfazien reached Zerai in Sicily in July 1939, but he could do nothing to get his brother free from the asylum.
  After Zerai's death in 1945, Tesfazien was able after a long struggle to repatriate his brother's remains to Eritrea. Zerai was buried in St. Mary's Church in Hazega, in front of which stands a monument depicting the patriot together with two lions.
caption: Tesfazion Deres wrote this letter to Emperor Selassie to get an airplane to bring home Zerai
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