page_title: Jijiga
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Jijiga / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Muqaalka taariikhiga ka ah magaalada Jijiga ee fooqdheere
context_page_description: Jijiga is a city in the Somali Region of Ethiopia. It became the capital of the Somali Regional State in 1995 after it was moved from Godey. Located in the Fafan Zone with 60 km west of the border with Somalia, the city has an elevation of 1,609 metres above sea level.
context_section_description: Jijiga was mentioned by W.C. Barker in 1842 as one of the mahalla or halting-places of the caravan route between Zeila and Harar.
  A British hunter Colonel Swayne passed through Jijiga in February 1893, which he described as a stockaded fort with a garrison of 25 men next to a group of wells.
  According to I. M. Lewis, Sayyid Mohammed Abdullah Hassan's men invaded Jijiga in March 1900. Although the attackers suffered heavy losses, which allowed the Ethiopian authorities to declare a victory, Sayyid Mohammed's men recovered livestock that the Ethiopians had taken from the Somalis and proved that his was a force to be reckoned with. However, Richard Pankhurst states that Jijiga was founded in 1916 by Fitawrari Tekle Hawariat Tekle Mariyam, who had the town methodically organized in a square grid of streets.
  During the Second Italo-Ethiopian War, Jijiga served for some time as Dejazmach Nasibu Emmanual's headquarters and a supply center for the Ethiopian army. An Italian force under Colonel Navarra occupied the city on the evening of 5 May 1936. Two days later, while inspecting a ruined Ethiopian Orthodox church in the city, Marshal Rodolfo Graziani fell into a concealed hole, which he was afterwards convinced was a mantrap; Anthony Mockler suggests this mishap contributed to his murderously paranoid mindset which led to the atrocities that followed the attempt on Graziani's life 19 February 1937.
  On 17 March 1941, during the East African Campaign of World War II, Jijiga was occupied by the 23rd Nigerian Brigade of the British 1st African Division. This was after the Italian garrison had already abandoned the city.
  Once they had possession of Jijiga, however, the British were slow in returning the city to the Ethiopians. At first, it was included as part of The Reserved Area, as defined in the Anglo-Ethiopian Agreement of 31 January 1942, which also included much of the Haud. Only after patient pressure from Emperor Haile Selassie, in 1948 the two countries began to discuss an agreement for the evacuation of the British from this territory. Although Ethiopian officers began to take over the administration from British officers in May–July, the protocol agreeing to the transfer was not signed until 24 July of that year. A brief demonstration of overt Somali nationalism occurred in Jijiga when the Somali Youth League (SYL) raised their flag before their headquarters in defiance of the law and the new Ethiopian administrators. Major Demeka, the governor-designate of the Ogaden Province, requested the British military administration, which was still in charge, to remove the flag. When the leaders refused to pull down their flag, the police brought it down with a machine gun mounted on an armored car. In the disturbances that followed, one policeman was killed and another wounded while the police opened fire on the crowd and killed 25 of them. The SYL was proscribed shortly afterwards in Ethiopia.
  Germame Neway, one of the leaders of the unsuccessful 1960 coup, served as governor over Jijiga in 1959. He had been transferred there for his civic responsibility and concern for the underprivileged while administering a district in Sidamo Province. The obstruction he encountered, not only in Sidamo but in Jijiga, convinced him of the need for radical measures. In the early stage of the Ethiopian Revolution individual units from the Third Division put the local governor under house arrest around 13 April 1974. During the Ogaden War, Jijiga experienced the Battle of Jijiga and was occupied by the Western Somali Liberation Front's Ahmad ibn Ibrihim al-Ghazi division led by Col. Yusuf Dheere, later with the Somali National Army, from September 1977 until February/March 1978.
  The Regional government held a conference in this city to promote peace and development between 10–13 March 1996, which was attended by 535 from the local woredas, as well as the Deputy Prime Minister and Defense Minister of Ethiopia, Tamirat Layne, the Foreign Minister, Seyoum Mesfin, the presidents of the Tigray and Harari Regional states and representatives from Amh
caption: Historic Fooq Dheere building in Jijiga.
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