THE AFRICAN COURIER. Reporting Africa and its Diaspora! The African Courier is an international magazine published in Germany to report on Africa and the Diaspora African experience. The first issue of the bimonthly magazine appeared on the newsstands on 15 February 1998. The African Courier is a communication forum for European-African political, economic and cultural exchanges, and a voice for Africa in Europe.
The Netherlands has returned a ceremonial 18th century crown that had been stolen from Ethiopia in 1993.
Dutch Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation, Ms Sigrid Kaag, personally handed over the crown to Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed when she called on the Ethiopian leader in Addis Ababa on Tuesday (18 February).
The crown, which has depictions of Jesus Christ, God and the Holy Spirit, as well as Jesus’ disciples, had been missing since 1993 and was rediscovered in Rotterdam, Netherlands, in October 2019.
The crown is hundreds of years old.
An Ethiopian, Sirak Asfaw, who lives in the Netherlands, found the crown in 1998 in the suitcase of an Ethiopian visitor and realised it was stolen. In an act of patriotism, he protected the artefact until he alerted a historian and the Dutch police of his discovery last year.
The Netherlands government returned the crown with the conviction “that it has a duty to restitute this important artefact back to Ethiopia”.
Read the incredible story of how the crown was rediscovered in Rotterdam here
