Ernst Marno

Who was Ernst Marno?

Ernst Marno was an Austrian explorer in East Africa. He traveled extensively through the Blue Nile area and the Sudanese-Ethiopian borderland, as well as Kordofan and southern Sudan. His experiences were narrated in two books. He offers information about the Nilo-Saharan populations of the area before the colonial occupation of Sudan by the British Empire. He himself married a Dinka, who had converted to Catholicism. From 1878 on, he was based in Fashoda as an officer at the service of Egypt and later he was appointed governor of the Sudanese cities of Famaka and Fazogli. During his stay in Sudan he met other European explorers, like Romolo Gessi and Juan Maria Schuver. He died in Khartoum of illness.