(Excerpt from the book ‘The Greeks in the Horn of Africa’)
Iacovos Zervos
came from a trade family of Cephalonia, which had moved to Sulina of Romania in
the mid-19th century. Zervos was born in Sulina, and later moved to Athens for medical
studies. He arrived in Ethiopia in the early 1930s. He was hired as a doctor by
Haile Selassie and soon he was appointed as a consul, by the Greek Foreign
Ministry. Zervos became the most trusted
person of the emperor. In
1953 he was honoured with the greatest distinction by the emperor, as he was
proclaimed bitwoded (beloved), a title given only to members of the
imperial family.
