Princess Fawzia farouk

HRH Princess Fawzia (7 April 1940 – 27 January 2005) was the second daughter of King Farouk I of Egypt and his first wife Queen Farida.

Born in Abdeen Palace in Cairo in the fourth year of her father's reign, Fawzia was named after her paternal aunt, who was reportedly King Farouk's favourite sister.

Princess Fawzia was 12 years old when the July 1952 Revolution led to her father's forced abdication and his departure from Egypt. Along with her two sisters and half-brother, she travelled with King Farouk on his last voyage out of Egypt, and lived with him in exile in Rome. Two years later, the three young princesses were sent to a Swiss boarding school by the king. Their mother Queen Farida stayed in Egypt, and joined her daughters in Switzerland only a decade after the revolution.

Princess Fawzia was an accomplished athlete. She took flying lessons and obtained a pilot's licence. A professional sailor, she managed to reach the rank of captain, and was also a passionate scuba diver. Thanks to her multilingualism (she mastered French, English, Italian, Spanish and Arabic), Princess Fawzia passed a difficult exam which qualified her to work as a simultaneous interpreter in Switzerland.

She was not rich, as her father had died without leaving his daughters much, and had to rely on her interpreting job as her sole means of subsistence. Although she had lost her royal status, Princess Fawzia remained strongly attached to her homeland, and visited Egypt as often as she could. Unlike her two sisters, she never married. In 1995, she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, which left her paralysed and bedridden. She died in Lausanne in 2005. Her body was flown to Cairo where she was buried at Al-Rifa'i Mosque, the traditional resting place of members of the Egyptian royal family