Gondrand massacre
The Gondrand massacre was a 1936 Ethiopian attack on Italian workers of the Gondrand company that resulted in nearly one hundred deaths.
History
The Gondrand massacre happened on February 13, 1936, during the Italian conquest of Ethiopia, near the northern Ethiopian town of Mai Lahlà.[1][2] A camp of civilian workers for the logistics company Gondrand, engaged at the time in road construction, was attacked at dawn by Ethiopian soldiers under the orders of Ras Immirù; nearly all the construction workers were killed.
The massacre took place around the same time as the Battle of Amba Aradam, fought from 10 to 19 February, 1936, about 200 kilometres (120 mi) south of Mai Lahlà.
Casualties
The construction yard was equipped with about 15 muskets, but – although the workers also used their work tools as defense weapons – they were overwhelmed by the surprise attack of the Ethiopians; almost all the workers present that night, 68 Italians and 17 Eritreans, were killed within a couple of hours.
About 68 Ethiopians who attacked the Gondrand yard also died in the attack, mostly because of an explosion. In the following days, after the capture by the Italians of all the attackers, a dozen of them were hanged or killed in various ways.
