Buckingham Palace rejected a request to send back the remains of an Ethiopian prince, who was buried at Windsor Castle in the 19th century, the British media said.
The request for the return of Prince Alemayehu's remains was made by descendants of the Ethiopian imperial family, who stressed that "it was not right" for him to be buried 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, told media.
However, a Buckingham Palace spokesman asserted that the removal of his remains could affect other people buried in the catacombs of St George's Chapel at Windsor Castle.
"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.
Ripped Out of His Home
The prince found himself in the UK at an early age as the result of a British military expedition to the mountain fortress at Magdala (now the village of Amba Mariam), against the prince's father, the Ethiopian Emperor Tewodros II, who, after failed attempts to form an alliance with the UK, took British subjects in Ethiopia hostage.
After winning the battle, Tewodros II committed suicide rather than be taken prisoner, and the British looted thousands of cultural and religious artifacts, among them gold crowns, manuscripts, necklaces and dresses, and also abducted Prince Alemayehu and his mother, Empress Tiruwork Wube.
The prince came under the financial protection of the British crown and was sent to receive a formal education, during which he was allegedly bullied. It is said he dreamt of returning home.
"I feel for him as if I knew him. He was dislocated from Ethiopia, from Africa, from the land of black people and remained there as if he had no home," Ethiopian royal descendant Abebech Kasa said.
Eventually, Alemayehu was raised in a private home in Leeds. But he fell ill, probably with pneumonia, and at some point refused treatment, thinking he had been poisoned, and soon after died. He was buried at Windsor Castle at the behest of Queen Victoria who had taken a great liking to him.
His disease was widely reported in the national press at the time, and Queen Victoria expressed her sorrow at the prince's death in her diary.
"Very grieved and shocked to hear by telegram, that good Alemayehu had passed away this morning. It is too sad! All alone, in a strange country, without a single person or relation, belonging to him," she wrote.
There have been calls from Ethiopia for the return of the prince's body before.
In 2007, Ethiopia's then-President Girma Wolde-Giorgis made a formal request to Queen Elizabeth II to return the body, but in 2019 Queen Elizabeth II reportedly refused to allow the remains to be repatriated.