Princess Tsehai

Princess Tsehai Haile Selassie (died 1942) was the third daughter and fourth child of Emperor Haile Selassie and Empress Menen Asfaw of Ethiopia.

The Princess often accompanied the Emperor to public events during his exile in Great Britain (1936 - 1941), where she trained as a nurse. After the restoration of her father in 1941, she was married to General Abiye Abebe, and moved with him to Welega Province after he was appointed governor there. Princess Tsehai died in Welega from complications during childbirth. Her child did not survive birth either. She was buried in the crypt of the Ba'eta Le Mariam Monastery in Addis Ababa which had been built as the mausoleum church of Emperor Menelik II.¹Emperor Haile Selassie founded the Princess Tsehai Memorial Hospital in her memory, which also served as a nursing school. After the 1974 revolution, the hospital was renamed the Armed Forces General Hospital.

Notes

# Mentioned by her father in his Life and Ethiopia's Progress (translated by Edward Ullendorff [Chicago: Research Associates, 1999]), at p. 296. Ullendorff's note provides some details about her and Abiye Abebe's lives.