The Last Askari
By Thomas C. Mountain
30 December, 2012
Countercurrents.org
One of, if not the last, Eritrean askari, aboy Welday Tecle Weldekidan
Melkai Tensai of the village of Damba Minche in the Serai region has
passed away at the age of 93.
Aboy Welday was drafted into the Italian African Colonial Army, or
“askaris” as they were known, in the first round of national
conscription instituted by the Italian colonialist regime in Eritrea
in 1937.
Italy began its invasion and occupation of Eritrea in the 1880’s but
due to a half a century of armed resistance to Italian colonialism by
the Eritrean people, had not dared to conscript, train and arm
Eritreans in fear that they would revolt, turn their guns on their
oppressors and go over to the anti colonialist resistance.
It wasn’t until the last remnants of the armed resistance had been
suppressed in the early 1930’s and several years had passed did the
Italians dare to enforce the creation of the the Eritrean askari
military, of which aboy Welday was conscripted in the first round.
The Italians had carried out a census of sorts and set up a system
whereby every village in Eritrea was required, depending on its
population, to provide a number of its young boys for conscription by
the Italian colonial military and at the age of 18 aboy Welday was
choosen by the village elders to meet their quota.
Shortly after completing his military training aboy Welday was
selected to be in the Elite 100 Tigrinia company, a program whereby
every major ethnic group in the Italian Colonial African Army provided
100 of its tallest, handsomest conscripts to participate in the
Italian Expo held in Italy in 1938.
So aboy Welday, along with thousands of other east Africans from
Eritrea, Somalia and Ethiopia, boarded ships and set sail for Italy,
where the arrival of such handsome young Africans in their smart
uniforms caused quite a sensation, especially amongst the young
Italian women.
All this excitement was broken by the advent of WW2 and aboy Welday’s
unit was seconded to an artillery brigade and sent to the Italian
colony of Libya to fight against the British and American armies on
behalf of their Italian rulers.
With the defeat and surrender of the Italian army in Africa to the
British, aboy Welday and his fellow askaris were imprisoned in a
p.o.w. camp under harsh conditions for several months until they were
finally repatriated to Eritrea where they each received 25 shillings
compensation and were discharged.
Aboy Welday returned to his village of Damba Minche and took up his
old life of farming but due to an infestation of locusts that ate his
first crop moved to the capital city of Asmara.
Aboy Welday had taught himself to read and write while in the askaris
and quickly found a position in the telecommunications sector in
Eritrea under the British colonialists,later the Ethiopians, beginning
an almost 40 year career as a lineman maintaining the telephone system
in Eritrea.
Being from Damba Minche, one of the homes of Eritrean nationalism
where Asmach Berhe, one of the founders of the Eritrea for Eritreans
movement was to be assassinated (Berhe was aboy Weldays relative) aboy
Welday was a staunch Eritrean patriot and eventually was imprisoned
for a period for refusing duty in the Ethiopian created militia
imposed on the town of Keren where Aboy spent most of his career in
telecommunications.
Of aboy Welday’s nine children five joined the armed struggle for
national liberation under the leadership of the Eritrean Peoples
Liberation Front, of whom one was martyred.
Aboy Welday, one of, if not the last Eritrean Askari, is survived by
his younger brother Kuflom, 7 children, 24 grandchildren and 5 great
grandchildren and will be laid to rest in his family burial plot next
to his late wife of 74 years, Sebene Tecle in Damba Minche.
Thomas C. Mountain, son in law of aboy Welday, is the most widely
distributed independent journalist in Africa, living and reporting
from Eritrea since 2006. He can be reached at
thomascmountain_at_yahoo_dot_com
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