After numerous technical hitches and embarassing delays, the first of three pieces of the famed Axum obelisk is finally due to arrive home from Italy on Tuesday, Italian officials said.
A plane carrying one-third of the huge, 160-tonne monument plundered by fascist Italy nearly 70 years ago is expected to land at the Axum airport at dawn on Tuesday, the officials said.
”We expect the flight to arrive tomorrow around 5am if everything works fine,” said Italy’s ambassador to Ethiopia, Guido La Tella.
”They have started loading the flight in Rome,” he said. ”The technical problems are solved.”
If the cargo aircraft touches down as planned, the long-awaited and much-delayed return of the 2 500-year-old, 24m funeral stele will have begun in earnest following more than a half century of wrangling between Rome and Addis Ababa.
The obelisk was taken by Italian troops as a prize of conquest in 1937 on the orders of dictator Benito Mussolini during his brief attempt to colonise Ethiopia.
Despite a 1947 agreement that called for its return, the monument has remained in Italy much to the anger of Ethiopia which had accused Rome of stalling on the earlier deal.
Until last year when it was dismantled by Italian experts in preparation for its journey home, the monument had stood outside the Rome headquarters of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation.
Earlier this month, after several false starts, Ethiopia announced with great fanfare that after years of waiting, the first piece would be returned to Axum on April 13 with the remaining two portions to come by April 23.
But three days later, it was forced to announce that the return had been put on hold indefinitely due to ”technical and logistic reasons”.
Ethiopia plans elaborate celebrations drawing on both national pride and the country’s anti-colonial history are planned to mark its arrival and re-erection, expected to be completed by June of July. – Sapa-AFP