Romanework Haile Selassie

Romanework Haile Selassie, also known as Romane Worq ("Golden Pomegranate"), was the eldest daughter of Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie.¹²

After the Italian occupation of Ethiopia, while her father took refuge in England with much of the royal family, the princess chose to remain in the country alongside her husband Merid Bayenne, a soldier engaged in the resistance against Italian troops.¹²

In 1937 she was arrested and deported to Italy together with her four sons: she was held first at the Asinara prison camp, in Sardinia, and then transferred to the Consolata Mission in Turin, where she died in 1940, aged 27, of tuberculosis.¹²

On 14 October 2026 a garden in Turin's Filadelfia district, between via Uffreduzzi and via Arduino, in Circoscrizione 8, is named after Romanework Haile Selassie. The ceremony is attended by City Council President Maria Grazia Grippo, the coordinator of Circoscrizione 8's fifth committee Michele Antonio Guggino, writer Stefano Garzaro, Panafricando association president Liuba Forte, and the vice-president of the Ethiopians and Friends in Piedmont association, Amare Dawit.¹²

Timeline

• 14 October 2026 — A garden in Turin's Filadelfia district is named after Romanework Haile Selassie, an Ethiopian princess deported to Italy under fascism who died in the city in 1940. Quotidiano Piemontese TorinoOggi

Sources

1. Quotidiano Piemontese — 14 October 2026
2. TorinoOggi — 14 October 2026