Yekatit 12 Massacre

On 19 February 1937, during a public alms-giving ceremony at the Genete Leul Palace (the Little Gebbi) in Addis Ababa, two young Eritreans, Abraha Deboch and Mogus Asgedom, threw grenades at Marshal Rodolfo Graziani, Viceroy of Italian East Africa, wounding him along with several Italian officials and killing others in the vicinity, including an aide to Abuna Qerellos. A third man, taxi driver Simeyon Adefres, reportedly helped plan the attack and drove the two attackers to safety before returning to Addis Ababa, where he was later arrested and tortured to death by Fascist authorities. Abraha and Mogus fled toward the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan but were killed by local inhabitants in Gojjam before reaching safety.

In response, Italian forces launched a violent reprisal. According to historical accounts, carabinieri fired into crowds gathered for the alms ceremony, and Federal Secretary Guido Cortese gave an order authorizing three days of killing against Ethiopians. A military tribunal was convened the same day, and 62 Ethiopians were tried and shot by nightfall at Alem Bekagn prison. Over the following three days, Italian forces and civilians killed Ethiopians using daggers, truncheons, and firearms, burned homes, and killed servants of local Greek and Armenian residents. Estimates of the death toll vary widely: Ethiopian sources cited 30,000 deaths, contemporaneous French and American newspapers reported figures between 1,400 and 6,000, historians Angelo Del Boca and Anthony Mockler estimated around 3,000, and a 2017 study by Ian L. Campbell estimated approximately 19,200 deaths, or about 20 percent of Addis Ababa's population at the time.

In the following days and weeks, thousands of additional Ethiopians—including members of the Black Lions resistance group and the aristocracy—were rounded up, imprisoned, or executed. Many Ethiopians who had studied abroad were killed under a prior order from Benito Mussolini targeting Ethiopian intellectuals. Thousands were sent to detention camps at Danan in the Ogaden and Nokra in the Dahlak Archipelago, where conditions were harsh; between ten and fifty percent of prisoners at Danan reportedly died from disease, poor sanitation, and forced labor.

A further reprisal occurred in May 1937, when Graziani, suspecting the monks of Debre Libanos monastery of harboring the attackers, ordered the summary execution of all monks. On 20 May 1937, according to Italian fascist records, 297 monks and 23 laymen were shot; other estimates place the death toll as high as 1,500 to 2,000.

Following the massacre, Graziani was removed from his post by Mussolini and replaced by Prince Amedeo, Duke of Aosta. Ethiopia commemorates the massacre annually. In 2023, the United States Embassy in Addis Ababa marked the 86th anniversary with the reopening of the restored "American Gibbi" building, where U.S. Chargé d'Affaires Cornelius Van H. Engert had sheltered 700 Ethiopians during the violence.