During the Second Italo-Ethiopian War, Sekota was occupied by the Italians 28 March 1936. During their occupation, the Italians built a road to Sekota passable by motorcars, and repaired the town's mosque. Beatrice Playne visited the town in late autumn of 1948, and found it "quite the most attractive Ethiopian town I have seen". She describes its "two-storied, stone houses, each with a little private garden, lying snugly amongst the surrounding wall of hills, like a Cotswold village", and its government offices were in "a low, Italian building in a square of grass."