Obelisk looted by Mussolini heads home to Ethiopia

ALMOST 70 years ago the dictator Benito Mussolini looted the Axum obelisk from the highlands of northern Ethiopia, carting it home to Italy as a trophy of his fascist glories.

Now, after years of prevarication, Italy is ready to send the ancient concrete pillar back - but first must find an airplane able to carry it.

Ethiopians are anxiously awaiting for Italians authorities to solve the last-minute snag, the final hurdle in a passionate campaign to have the 1,700-year-old pillar returned to its African home.

Built under the empire of Axum in the 4th century AD, the 78-foot-high obelisk is considered a national treasure in Ethiopia. "It’s our identity, it is part of us. It is part of our own history. It’s a very emotional matter here," said foreign minister Seyoum Mesfin.

The obelisk disappeared from Ethiopia in 1937, cut into three pieces and sent to Rome by sea at the height of Italy’s brief occupation of Ethiopia. Emperor Haile Selassie protested at the theft in vain.

For 67 years it stood in Rome’s Piazza Porta Capenna, a traffic-choked square in front of the former office for African colonies, now the headquarters of the UN Food and Agricultural Organisation. Italy resisted decades of pressure from Ethiopia to return the monument but then two years ago lightning struck - literally. A bolt hit the obelisk, knocking chunks of stone to the ground. President Silvio Berlusconi relented and ordered it be sent home.

Now only the air ticket remains to be resolved. The dismantled obelisk sits in a warehouse near Rome’s Fiumicino airport. But only the US and Russia have cargo planes powerful enough to transport it.