Ethiopian Prisoners of War. During the Second Italo-Ethiopian War, the fascist invaders captured selected prominent Ethiopians as POWs and sent them off to different prison camps while the unfortunate ones were executed immediately. The majority of the public executions and mass incarcerations happened in the wake of the assassination attempt on Rodolfo Graziani. The Italian occupying force gave permission to the black shirts to kill off the educated class, sparing only a few notables who were transported to various concentration camps the fascists maintained in the Harar region, Italian Somaliland, Eritrea and Italy. While the majority of POWs who were kept at Asinara and other prison camps in Italy survived, thousands of POWs in Africa perished under the inhumane conditions they were for