Rosa Dainelli


Rosa Dainelli was an Italian doctor who was working in Ethiopia during World War II, when the British conquered Italian East Africa in the Horn of Africa. She actively participated in sabotage actions against the British Army.

Historical background

Many Italians fought a guerrilla war in Italian East Africa after the surrender at Gondar of the last regular Italian forces in November 1941.
They fought in the hope of an Italian victory with the help of Rommel in Egypt and in the Mediterranean that would originate a possible return of the Axis in Eastern Africa.

Dainelli guerrilla action

She became an active member of the Fronte di Resistenza, an Italian organization which fought the Allies in the Italian guerrilla war in Ethiopia from December 1941 until the summer of 1943..
In August 1942 she managed to enter the main ammunition depot of the British Army in Addis Ababa and blow it up, somehow surviving the huge explosion. She was taken prisoner by the British shortly after. This act of sabotage destroyed the ammunition for the new British Sten submachine gun and delayed the deployment of this stopgap, extremely simple and cheaply made submachine gun that used regular 9x19 mm Parabellum ammunition, for many months.

Doctor Dainelli was famous as one of the few Italian women who participated actively in the Italian guerrilla operations against the British troops after the East African Campaign
After the successful sabotage she was quickly captured with her brother Giulio, and tortured.
She moved to Switzerland in 1945, where she worked in Geneva at the "Bureau International de Travail" of the ONU.
She was nominated, after the end of the war, for the Italian iron medal of honour
Her true name was Rosa Dainelli and some sources claim the date of attack was actually 15 September 1941.. These sources pinpoint that her depot sabotage destroyed ammunition that was going to be used against the Italians in their last stand in Gondar.