Asosa
Coordinates: 10 ° 4 ′ N , 34 ° 31 ′ E
Asosa (also Assosa or Asossa ; Ethiopian script : አሶሳ) is a city in Ethiopia with more than 20,000 inhabitants. It is located 450 km west of Addis Ababa on the border with Sudan and is the capital of the Benishangul-Gumuz region . Within this region it belongs to the woreda Asosa in the Asosa zone of the same name .
The city is at an altitude of 1570 meters.
population
The 2005 census counted 20,226 residents.
According to the 1994 census, of 11,749 inhabitants, 41.19% were Oromo , 29.93% Amharen , 17.39% Berta ( Jebelawi ), 5.43% Tigray , 1.35 Sebat-Bet- Gurage (1.35%) and 1.29% Silt'e , the remaining 3.42% belonged to other ethnic groups. 44.42% of the population spoke Oromo as their mother tongue, 31.53% Amharic , 15.98% Berta , 4.43% Tigrinya and 3.64% other languages. 54.92% were Ethiopian Orthodox Christians, 29, 75% were Muslims and 14.89% were Protestants.
| year | Residents |
|---|---|
| 1984 | 4,159 (census) |
| 1994 | 11,749 (census) |
| 2005 | 20,226 (census) |
| 2007 | 20,879 (official estimate) |
history
Asosa was founded by Sheikh Ḫʷāǧalī al-Ḥasan at the end of the 19th century . He was a descendant of Arab-Sudanese groups of traders and preachers (the waṭāwiṭ ) who had come to the area in the first quarter of the 19th century to trade in gold and slaves.
After the Ethiopian conquest of today's Benishangul-Gumuz in 1898, Asosa became its political and economic center, it was closely connected to the Ethiopian central government and supplied them with gold and slaves on a large scale until the mid-1930s. The local population from Berta and waṭāwiṭ groups along the border with Sudan were severely affected by slave hunts, forced labor in the gold fields and recruitment for the military by the ruling waṭāwiṭ families.
During the Italian occupation from 1936 to 1941 , Asosa was the main town of the Benishangul or Béni Sciangùl commissariat , during which time it had an important market, a post office, telegraphs, a hospital and an airport. On May 11, 1941, a Belgian contingent from the Belgian Congo captured Asosa from the Italian Tenth Brigade, 1,500 Italians were captured and the rest deserted or dispersed.
Under the Derg regime, which ruled Ethiopia from 1974, around 60,000 farmers affected by drought and famine were resettled from the highlands, mostly from the Wollo province , to the area around Asosa, especially in the mid-1980s . The first major resettlement program in the west of the country began here as early as 1979. To do this, the local population had to give up land and work free of charge in setting up the new facilities. This was also one of the few areas in which the forced collectivization of agriculture was implemented.
In the final phase of the Derg regime, Asosa was badly damaged by various resistance movements during military operations and attempts at conquest. The Eritrean EPLF advanced far south from its actual territory in order to weaken the central government, and in January 1990 handed the conquered Benishangul area to the Oromo Liberation Front OLF. However, contrary to expectations, this received little support from the population and was only able to keep Asosa under its control for two months; When she withdrew, she burned down the newly built hospital, destroyed the city's only generator and stole 1.8 million birr from the local bank. The government army fought the OLF with air strikes that killed 19 people and injured 20 in the city. The SPLA from South Sudan was also involved in the fighting over Asosa.
After 1991 Asosa became the capital of the Benishangul-Gumuz region, which was formed as part of the new administrative division of Ethiopia .
traffic
Asosa has an airport with the ICAO code "HASO" and the IATA airport code "ASO".
Web links
swell
- ↑ a b Central Statistics Agency (CSA): 2005 National Statistics, Section – B Population ( Memento of the original dated February 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Table B.4 (PDF; 1.8 MB)
- ↑ CSA: The 1994 Population and Housing Census of Ethiopia: Results for Benishangul-Gumuz Region, Volume I: Statistical Report , 1996 (PDF; 48.4 MB), pp. 46, 53, 65
- ↑ bevölkerungsstatistik.de (2010)
- ↑ a b c d e f Alessandro Triulzi: Asosa , in: Siegbert Uhlig (Ed.): Encyclopaedia Aethiopica , Volume 1, 2003, ISBN 3-447-04746-1
- ↑ Local history in Ethiopia ( Memento of September 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 242 kB), compiled by Bernhard Lindahl, The Nordic Africa Institute
- ↑ Alex de Waal, Africa Watch: Evil Days. 30 Years of War and Famine in Ethiopia , 1991 (pp. 322-324, 326, 328)
- ^ John Young: Along Ethiopia's Western Frontier: Gambella and Benishangul in Transition , in: The Journal of Modern African Studies , Vol. 37/2, June 1999, pp. 321-346
- ↑ Ethiopia: "Mengistu has decided to Burn Us like Wood". Bombing of Civilians and Civilian Targets by the Air Force (PDF; 233 kB), Africa Watch, July 24, 1990.
