Italian Eritreans - Prominent Italian Eritreans

Prominent Italian Eritreans

• Vincenzo Di Meglio. A Doctor at Asmara hospital during the later years of Italian rule, and appointed Director of the C.R.I.E (Comitato Rappresentativo degli Italiani dell’Eritrea), the main association of Italians in Eritrea during British rule. Dr. Di Meglio was one of the main opposers in Eritrea of the British attempt in 1947 to divide Eritrea between Sudan and Ethiopia, a British plot to increase their influence in the region. He obtained the dismissal of this project by the United Nations with his continuous pressure on UN Latin-American representatives (like those of Haiti): the proposal was rejected by a margin of just one vote -that of Haiti- and so Eritrea was not divided between Sudan and Ethiopia. He was later unsuccessful -as representative of independist Eritrean organizations- when he spoke at the United Nations assembly in New York against the annexation of Eritrea by Ethiopia, as a federated province, in 1950. At the UN, Vincenzo Di Meglio promoted in agreement with the Italian government the idea of "Trustee Administration" by Italy of an independent Eritrea, akin to that of Somalia .
• Ferdinando Martini. The first Governor of the Italian colony of Eritrea. In 1897 he established the Capital of the colonia primogenita ("first-born colony", as Eritrea was called by the Italians) in temperate Asmara, moving the Italian Administration away from hot, equatorial Massawa. During ten years as governor, Fernando Martini built many infrastructures in Asmara (like the present Presidential Palace).
• Luciano Violante, former President of the Italian chamber of Deputies
• Bruno Lauzi, singer-songwriter
• Italo Vassalo, footballer
• Sivana Savorelli, aka Lara Saint Paul, designer
• Remo Girone, actor