Afder zone

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The Afder Zone ( Somali : Afdheer , Ge'ez : አፍዴር ) is an administrative zone of the Somali region in Ethiopia . According to the 2007 census, it had 570,629 inhabitants, of whom 45,763 lived in urban areas. It lies between the Shabelle rivers in the north and Ganale in the south. In the west it borders within Ethiopia on the Oromia region , in the east on Somalia . The capital of the zone is Hargele .

The name of the zone is derived from a hill near the Guda Asbo salt lake .

In 1997, of 358,998 residents, 96.21% were Somali and 1.29% Oromo . 93.23% spoke Somali as their mother tongue and 2.13% Oromo . 3.43% could read and write.

Until the reorganization of the administrative structure of Ethiopia in 1991, the area of ​​Afder belonged to the province of Bale . Within Bale it formed the district ( Awrajja ) El Kere since 1984 with El Kere as the main town.

According to the documents of the Central Statistics Agency of Ethiopia from 2007, the zone is divided into the nine woredas Afder , Bare , Dolobay (Dolo Bay), Goro Bekeksa (Goro Baqaqsa), Guradamole , Kensa Dula, Serer, Mirab Imi (West Imi ) and Weyb ( Weyib). In the 1998 and 2005 documents, however, only seven woredas are mentioned; Goro Bekeksa, Kensa Dula, Serer and Weyb are missing, but the names Chereti (Cherti, Cherati) and Elekere (El Kere, El Karre) appear. There is a woreda Hargele on a map of the Ethiopian Disaster Prevention and Preparedness Agency from 2006. The division within the Somali region has been changed several times, often in the context of local power struggles. In addition, the borders with the Oromia region are controversial. At the end of 2004 a referendum was held in the border areas to clarify who they belonged to. There was tension between Oromo and Somali, especially in Guradamole and Goro Bekeksa.

Larger places in Afder are Chereti , El Kere , Gudelcha , Hargele , Guda Asbo (God-usbo), Bare and Weldiya .

The west of the zone is somewhat higher and is mainly thick, thorny bushland, the semi- arid lowland in the east is covered by open bush and grassland. The most important livelihood in most parts of the zone is livestock farming, especially camels, sheep and goats. Cattle have become less important as the environmental conditions have become more difficult. The nomads usually roam within the Afder zone. On the Ganale and on the Webi Gestro (Weyb), which only has seasonal water and flows from north to south through the zone, sedentary farmers live mainly from growing maize and raising cattle. In the wider area around the rivers and in part of the higher-lying area in the north-west, maize cultivation is combined with the keeping of cattle and small livestock ( agropastoralism ).

Salt production is traditionally practiced in Afder. The salt from the Guda Asbo area is mainly sold in the Ethiopian highlands, where demand has increased since Eritrea closed its border with Ethiopia in the course of the Eritrea-Ethiopia War of 1998-2000. In addition, the road connections into the salt area have been improved. Young men from the surrounding area and from poor cattle herding families work in the salt production, but also workers from Kalafo and the neighboring Bakool region in Somalia. Frankincense , myrrh and gum arabic are other commodities from the Afder zone.

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  1. ↑ a b Central Statistical Agency : Population and Housing Census Report - Somali Region - 2007 ( Memento of November 11, 2013 in the Internet Archive ), pp. 7, 8
  2. ↑ a b c d Save the Children / Disaster Prevention and Preparedness Agency: Afder Pastoral Livelihood Zone  ( page no longer available , search in web archives ), 2001 (PDF; 1.3 MB)@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.dppc.gov.et
  3. ^ Drought and Floods Stress Livelihoods and Food Security in the Ethiopian Somali Region. Assessment Mission Reports: October 5 - 17 and October 27 - November 2, 1999
  4. ↑ a b CSA: 1994 Population and Housing Census of Ethiopia: Results for Somali Region, Vol. 1 ( Memento from September 23, 2015 in the Internet Archive ), 1998 (PDF; 51.8 MB)
  5. ↑ Alain Gascon: El Käre , in: Siegbert Uhlig (Ed.): Encyclopaedia Aethiopica , Volume 2, 2005, ISBN 978-3447052382
  6. ↑ a b Central Statistical Agency : 2005 National Statistics, Section – B Population ( Memento from September 23, 2015 in the Internet Archive ), Tables B.3, B.4 (PDF; 1.8 MB)
  7. ↑ Disaster Prevention and Preparedness Agency: Administrative Region and Woreda Map of Somali ( Memento of March 5, 2009 in the Internet Archive ), 2006 (PDF; 150 kB)
  8. ↑ Tobias Hagmann: Beyond Clannishness and Colonialism: Understanding political disorder in Ethiopia's Somali Region, 1991–2004 ( Memento of November 11, 2013 in the Internet Archive ), in: Journal of Modern African Studies 43 (4), 2005 (PDF), p 12
  9. ↑ Internal Displacement Monitoring Center: Somali-Oromo border referendum of December 2004 ( Memento of April 30, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
  10. ↑ Somali Regional State Summary ( Memento from February 19, 2014 in the Internet Archive ), 2004 (PDF; 282 kB)