Her father Ras Desta Damtew however led the resistance forces in southern Ethiopia for some months, until he was captured by the Italians and executed in 1937.
[2] Princess Aida later returned to Ethiopia and married Leul Ras Mengesha Seyoum (Prince of Tigray) in Addis Ababa, in January 1949.
Ras Mangasha had escaped days earlier and would establish the Ethiopian Democratic Union (EDU) which would fight the Derg regime until the EDU fractured in 1977 between rival factions.
These women were made to share a former storage room in the precincts of the notorious Akaki Prison known as "Alem Bekagn" which translates to "I am done with the world".
Years of campaigning by their friends and relatives as well as human rights and humanitarian organizations around the world had little effect in convincing the Derg regime to release the women of the Imperial family.