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Kobo (woreda)

Coordinates: 12°08′N 39°39′E / 12.133°N 39.650°E / 12.133; 39.650
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Kobo (Tigrinya: ቆቦ) is a district (woreda) currently in the Amhara Region of Ethiopia. Located in the northeast corner of the Semien Wollo Zone, Kobo is bordered on the south by the Logiya River which separates it from Habru and Guba Lafto, on the west by Gidan, on the north by Tigray Region, and on the east by the Afar Region. Towns in Kobo include Gobiye, Kobo and Robit (Kobo Robit).

History

Kobo historically has always been mainly inhabited by Tigrayan people, and it has always been part of the old Tigray province governance (including during Yohannes IV's reign). And before all this, it was part of Kingdom of Axum where its capital city was Axum.[1] However, at the mid of Haile Selassie's rule of Ethiopia (on 1941 & 1943), Raya (Kobe & Azabo) and Welkait were taken away from the old Tigray state and they were given to Begemder and to Welo provinces. One of the reasons why Raya was given to Welo was because Haile Selassie's son Crown Prince Amha Selassie was appointed as the governor of Welo. According to historical books & historical maps, Tigray state's south-eastern border has always been Alewha river (i.e. Tigrinya: አሉሃ ምላሽ), which includes Kobo district (also called Raya-Kobo) and Kobo town. However, Kobo district have not yet been returned to Tigray state.[2][3]

Welkait and some other provinces were given to Begemder since there was armed rebellion in Tigray against Haile Selassie's rule, so it was part of the effort to divide and rule Tigrayans. Therefore, from 1943 until the 1995 constitution ratification, Raya was part of Welo province. Raya was then split into two parts once ethnic federalism was established in Ethiopia. One of the two parts which now turned to have an Amhara majority (Kobo woreda) went to the new Amhara Region, the other (Raya Azebo) which still had a majority of Tigrayans was returned to Tigray Region (like it was for most of the 3000 years history of Ethiopia that had Tigrayans-who are direct decedents of Axumits[4]- [5][6][7]; before Haile Selassie changed it on 1941/1943).[8][9][10]

The decline of the Tigrayan population in Ethiopia during Haile Selassie's reign – in particular in districts of the former Tigray province, which are given to the present-day Amhara Region, like Addi Arkay (woreda), Kobo (woreda) & Sanja (woreda) – is likely to have been as a result of Haile Selassie's suppression and systematic persecution against non-Amhara ethnic peoples of Ethiopia (in particular, his immense systematic persecution of Tigrayans). For example, on the 1958 famine of Tigray, Haile Selassie refused to send any significant basic emergency food aid to Tigray province despite having the resources to; as a consequence, over 100,000 people died of the famine (in Tigray province).[11][12][13]

Later on, the Mengistu Haile Mariam-led brutal military dictatorship (Derg) also used the 1983–1985 famine in Ethiopia as government policy (by restricting food supplies) for counter-insurgency strategy (against Tigray People's Liberation Front guerrilla-soldiers), and for "social transformation" in non-insurgent areas (against people of Tigray province, Welo province and such).[14][15][16] Due to organized government policies that deliberately multiplied the effects of the famine, around 1.2 million people died in Ethiopia from this famine where most of the death tolls were from Tigray province (and other parts of northern Ethiopia).[17][18][19]

Since May 2018, different groups of youths in Amhara Region have started robbing food/grain loads from trucks heading to supply Tigray region, in an effort to starve Tigrayans & further depopulate Tigray region, as they claim. It is part of these Amhara youths' rhetoric to take away more lands from Tigray Region (especially from Welkait district & from Raya district). The youths are also blocking roads which lead to Tigray region, but the Amhara regional government and Abiy Ahmed Ali's new federal government administration has turned a blind eye to their lawlessness. (Since June 2018, the Amhara state TV has even started echoing these rhetorics. Following these rhetorics, over 70,000 Tigrayans have been barbarically killed or displaced in Ethiopia, where the majority of these Tigrayan victims were in Amhara Region.)[20]

Overview

The landscape of this woreda is characterized by a broad fertile plain which is separated from the lowlands of the Afar Region by the Zobil mountains, which are over 2000 meters high. In general, the altitude of Kobo ranges from 1100 meters on the plains to slightly more than 3000 meters above sea level along the border with Gidan.[21] Kobo, as well as the other seven rural woredas of this Zone, has been grouped amongst the 48 woredas identified as the most drought prone and food insecure in the Amhara Region.[22] To combat increasing droughts and improve crop yields, two irrigation projects have been undertaken in this woreda by the Commission for Sustainable Agriculture and Environmental Rehabilitation in the Amhara Region and the NGO Lutheran World Federation, affecting 302 hectares and benefiting 1,017 households.[23]

The northern part of Kobo woreda is traversed from west to southeast by Hormat River. The river passes south of Zobil Mountains.

The woreda Agriculture and Rural Development Office announced 8 April 2007 that it was starting a program to improve the livelihood of woreda inhabitants, affecting 53,000 farmers. This would use 23.3 million birr of Regional funds to develop basin and degraded mountains, construct all weather roads and irrigation diversion canals, improve springs as well as various "water harvesting structures". A similar program initiated a few years previously led to a decline in the number of farmers migrating to the Afar Region, Djibouti and Sudan.[24]

In December 2008, construction on a 2.5 kilometer flood wall was completed, which would protect hundreds of hectares of farmland from frequent flooding by the Dikalla river.[25]

Demographics

Based on the 2007 national census conducted by the Central Statistical Agency of Ethiopia (CSA), this woreda has a total population of 221,958, an increase of 26.43% over the 1994 census, of whom 111,605 are men and 110,353 women; 33,142 or 14.93% are urban inhabitants. With an area of 2,001.57 square kilometers, Kobo has a population density of 110.89, which is less than the Zone average of 123.25 persons per square kilometer. A total of 54,466 households were counted in this woreda, resulting in an average of 4.08 persons to a household, and 52,108 housing units. The majority of the inhabitants practiced Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity, with 82.88% reporting that as their religion, while 16.5% of the population said they were Muslim.[26]

The 1994 national census reported a total population for this woreda of 175,558 in 37,031 households, of whom 87,636 were men and 87,922 were women; 28,706 or 16.35% of its population were urban dwellers. The two largest ethnic groups reported in Kobo were the Amhara (98.63%), and the Tigrayan (1.26%); all other ethnic groups made up 0.11% of the population. Amharic was spoken as a first language by 98.45%, and Tigrinya was spoken by 1.47%; the remaining 0.08% spoke all other primary languages reported. The majority of the population practiced Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity with 83.2% reported to profess this belief, while 16.72% of the population said they were Muslim.[27]

Notes

  1. ^ "The British Museum, "The wealth of Africa:- The kingdom of Aksum"" (PDF).
  2. ^ "BBC-News, "-ኢሳይያስ መቐለ ከይረኣየ ብምኻዱ ብጣዕሚ ኣሕዚኑኒ- ዶ/ር ሰሎሞን ዕንቋይ"".
  3. ^ "ኣብራሃም ብርሃነ, "ኣርካን፡ነጋድራስ ገብረሕይወት ባይከዳኝ፡ድሕሪ ሓደ ዘመን!"" (PDF).
  4. ^ Stuart Munro-Hay, Aksum: A Civilization of Late Antiquity (Edinburgh: University Press, 1991), pp. 57
  5. ^ "Bernard Leeman, THE REALM OF D'MT - ONE AND THE SAME AS QUEEN YODIT'S DAMOT?".
  6. ^ Shaw, Thurstan (1995), The Archaeology of Africa: Food, Metals and Towns, Routledge, p. 612, ISBN 978-0-415-11585-8
  7. ^ "The British Museum, "The wealth of Africa:- The kingdom of Aksum"" (PDF).
  8. ^ Bereket Habte Selassie, "Constitutional Development in Ethiopia", Journal of African Law, 10 (1966), p. 79.
  9. ^ "Sarah Vaughan, "Ethnicity and Power in Ethiopia", PhD dissertation, p. 123, 2003" (PDF).
  10. ^ The 1994 Population and Housing Census of Ethiopia Results for Tigray Region. Vol. 1. Addis Ababa: Central Statistical Authority. 1995. p. 70.
  11. ^ "Bahru Zewde, [London: James Currey, 1991], p. 196. "A History of Modern Ethiopia: 1855–1974"".
  12. ^ "Peter Gill, p.26 & p.27. "Famine and Foreigners: Ethiopia Since Live Aid"" (PDF).
  13. ^ "Mesfin Wolde Mariam, "Rural Vulnerability to Famine in Ethiopia: 1958-77"".
  14. ^ de Waal 1991, p. 4–6.
  15. ^ Young 2006, p. 132.
  16. ^ "Peter Gill, page.43 "Famine and Foreigners: Ethiopia Since Live Aid"" (PDF).
  17. ^ "Peter Gill, page.44 "Famine and Foreigners: Ethiopia Since Live Aid"" (PDF).
  18. ^ "Dawit Wolde Giorgis, "Red Tears: War, Famine, and Revolution in Ethiopia"".
  19. ^ de Waal 1991, p. 5.
  20. ^ "International Organization for Migration, "Ethiopia: Displacement Tracking Matrix (DTM) Tigray Region, Round 14: November – December 2018 - Summary of Key Findings"".
  21. ^ Svein Ege, "North Wälo 1:100,000. Topographic and administrative map of North Wälo Zone, Amhara Region, Ethiopia" Archived 2011-07-18 at the Wayback Machine. Trondheim, NTNU, 2002
  22. ^ Seid Yassin, "Small-Scale Irrigation and Household Food Security: A Case Study of Three Irrigation Schemes in Gubalafto Woreda of North Wollo Zone, Amhara Region" Archived 2011-07-20 at the Wayback Machine, Master's Thesis, Graduate School of the University of Addis Ababa (June 2002), p. 35
  23. ^ Seid Yassin, "Small-Scale Irrigation", p. 42
  24. ^ "Woreda implementing over 23mln birr food security projects" (Walta Information Center)
  25. ^ "Flood wall worth over 6 mln Birr constructed", Ethiopian News Agency (accessed 29 April 2009)
  26. ^ Census 2007 Tables: Amhara Region Archived 2010-11-14 at the Wayback Machine, Tables 2.1, 2.4, 2.5, 3.1, 3.2 and 3.4.
  27. ^ 1994 Population and Housing Census of Ethiopia: Results for Amhara Region, Vol. 1, part 1 Archived 2010-11-15 at the Wayback Machine, Tables 2.1, 2.7, 2.10, 2.13, 2.17, Annex II.2 (accessed 9 April 2009)

12°08′N 39°39′E / 12.133°N 39.650°E / 12.133; 39.650 Template:Woredas of the Semien Wollo Zone

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