BEIRUT, LEBANON (1:40 P.M.) – The family of Dundar Abdul Karim Osmanoglu, the last heir to the throne of the dissolved Ottoman Empire, passed away on late Monday evening at the age of 90.
In a statement on her official Twitter account, a family member, Orhan Osmanoglu, said: “The father of our family and the Ottoman dynasty, our uncle Prince Dundar Abdul Karim Osmanoglu died in Damascus, Syria..May God have mercy on him.”
According to the Turkish newspaper Daily Sabah, Osmanoglu lived alone in the city of Damascus in which he was born in 1930 after his parents were removed from Turkey after the caliphate was abolished in 1924.
For years, the descendants of the Ottoman dynasty who live in Turkey sought to bring their heir from Syria, which cut ties with Turkey after the outbreak of the Syrian civil war in 2011, according to the same source.
According to the Turkish Anadolu Agency , Osmanoglu is the fourth grandson of the last Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid II, and he is the forty-fifth president of the dynasty that ruled the Ottoman Empire from 1281 to 1922, and he was married to Yusra Hanim Effendi and they had no children.
The descendants of the Ottoman dynasty were forced to leave Turkey after the exile began in 1924. The female relatives were allowed to return to Turkey in 1952, while males were allowed to return later in 1974.
Source: Sputnik Arabic
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