Historical Research and Interview with Ethiopian Survivors of Yekatit 12

In February 1937, during the three-day long massacre of civilians known in Ethiopia as Yekatit 12, the American Ambassador to Ethiopia, Cornelius Van Engert, opened the doors of the American Legation in the Mercato district of Addis Ababa and offered refuge to several hundred Ethiopian families and individuals fleeing the massacres. As a result, at least 588 people, including 152 children, were sheltered inside the compound’s walls during the massacre and saved from almost certain death. The American Embassy to Ethiopia has a list of names of the male heads of households of the families who were harbored in the American legation during Yekatit 12, and wishes to locate and contact survivors of the massacre still alive, and their children.