Warder (Ethiopia)

Coordinates: 6 ° 58 '  N , 45 ° 20'  E

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Ethiopia

Warder ( Somali Wardheer , Ge'ez ዋርዴር; also Werder , Wardher , Wardair , Werdeir , Uarder , Uardere ) is a city in the Somali region of Ethiopia . It is the capital of Werder Zone , located in the territory of Somaliland from the communities of Ogadeni- Darod .

According to the Central Statistics Agency of Ethiopia, Warder had 18,357 inhabitants in 2005. In 1997, 98.2% of the 12,309 residents were Somali.

In 1910 a fort of Mohammed Abdullah Hassan was built in Warder , with which the latter consolidated his control over the Ogaden area after the relocation of his headquarters to Taleh .

About 12 km northwest of Warder is the oasis Walwal (Ual-Ual, Welwel), which is known for the "border incident" between Ethiopia and Italian Somaliland in 1935 immediately before the Italo-Ethiopian war .

In 1948, Ethiopian district governors were sent to Kebri Dehar , Kalafo and Warder. This was the first time that the east of the Ogaden was administered by Ethiopia.

After the Ogaden War of 1977/78, the Ethiopian army recaptured Warder from Somali guerrillas in November 1980. It met with little resistance as the Somali fighters withdrew across the border into Somalia . In the further course of the year Warder, Kebri Dehar and Gode served as bases from which the recapture of Ogaden was completed.

At the end of February 1994 clashes between the Ethiopian army and the separatist Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) broke out in Warder , in which dozens of people were killed. The urban population fled to the countryside.

The conflict between the ONLF and the army in the Somali region has intensified since 2007, Warder is one of the affected areas. As part of the counterinsurgency efforts , the army evacuated villages in the area and forced the residents to move into the city, some villages were subsequently burned down. Warder residents who live on the outskirts were forced to move closer to the city center. Access to watering holes in the city was restricted for civilians and completely banned for nomads from outside the city. In the Warder military base, prisoners were ill-treated and extrajudicially executed, and women were raped by soldiers there. MSF reported in September 2008 that 8,000 to 10,000 internally displaced people were living in precarious conditions in Warder as a result of the drought and conflict .

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1. ↑ Central Statistical Agency : 2005 National Statistics, Section – B Population ( Memento of February 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ), Table B.4 (PDF; 1.70 MB)
2. ↑ CSA: 1994 Population and Housing Census of Ethiopia: Results for Somali Region, Vol. 1 ( Memento from September 23, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF file; 49.38 MB), 1998
3. ^ Said Sheikh Samatar : Oral Poetry and Somali Nationalism. The Case of Sayyid Mahammad Abdille Hasan , Cambridge University Press 1982, ISBN 0521238331 (p. 133)
4. ↑ ^{a b} The Nordic Africa Institute: Local History in Ethiopia: Warder , Werder (PDF)
5. ^ Gebru Tareke: From Lash to Red Star: The Pitfalls of Counter-Insurgency in Ethiopia, 1980–82 , in: The Journal of Modern African Studies , Vol. 40/3, September 2002, pp. 465–498
6. ^ United Nations Emergencies Unit for Ethiopia: February 1994 Monthly Situation Report
7. ↑ Human Rights Watch: Collective Punishment - War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity in the Ogaden area of ​​Ethiopia's Somali Region , 2008
8. ↑ doctorswithoutborders.org: Field News: Somali Region, Ethiopia: Thousands of IDPs in Search of Food and Water ( Memento of July 25, 2011 in the Internet Archive ), September 19, 2008