Memorial Service for Her Highness Princess Seble Desta – Jan 5, 2023: IDOR Reports


As is the custom within IDOR and the local Rastafari community of Baltimore and Washington, D.C., I-n-I seek to recognize and participate in various holidays and other significant events held by the local Ethiopian community. On Thursday, January 5, 2023, a memorial service was held for Her Highness Princess Seble Desta at the Debre Genet Medhanealem Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahido Church located at 4401 Old Branch Avenue, Temple Hills, Maryland. Approximately 200 members of the Ethiopian community were in attendance. Br. Jake Homiak attended on behalf of IDOR and the local Rastafari community. The family of Prince Seble Desta received mourners later that day at the St. Luke Serbian Orthodox Church, 6801 Georgetown Pike.

Princess Seble Desta was born in 1931 and traveled internationally with her grandfather, His Imperial Majesty, Emperor Haile Selassie I on several occasions. This included on his first state visit to America in 1954 when the Emperor was received at the White House by President Dwight D. Eisenhower and First Lady, Mamie Eisehower (see photo) as well as in 1963 when the Emperor met with President John F. Kennedy. After suffering years of imprisonment under the Derg (1975-1988), Princess Seble and other members of her family were released and relocated to Northern Virginia in 1989. A fuller biography follows.

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