Aware (woreda)
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Aware () is one of the
woreda Districts of Ethiopia, also called woredas (; ''woreda''), are the third level of the administrative divisions of Ethiopia – after ''List of zones of Ethiopia, zones'' and the ''Regions of Ethiopia, regional states''. These districts are f ...
s of Ethiopia in the
Somali Region The Somali Region (, , ), also known as Soomaali Galbeed () and officially the Somali Regional State, is a Regions of Ethiopia, regional state in eastern Ethiopia. It is the largest region of Ethiopia. The state borders the Ethiopian regions ...
. Part of the Jarar Zone, formerly
Degehabur Zone Jarar () is a Zones of Ethiopia, zone in Somali Region of Ethiopia. It was previously known as the Degehabur zone, so named after its largest city, Degehabur. Jarar Zone is bordered on the south by Korahe Zone, Korahe, on the southwest by Fiq Zo ...
, Aware is bordered on the south by Gunagado, on the west by Degehabur, on the north by the Jijiga Zone, on the northeast by
Somaliland Somaliland, officially the Republic of Somaliland, is an List of states with limited recognition, unrecognised country in the Horn of Africa. It is located in the southern coast of the Gulf of Aden and bordered by Djibouti to the northwest, E ...
, and on the east by Misraq Gashamo. Gunagado, Daroor, Yoocaale, and Gashamo woredas were all separated from Aware between 1995 and 2015. The capital of the woreda is Aware.


Overview

Situated near the border with Somaliland, Aware is one of the oldest cities in the Ogaden, with history spanning over centuries. Prior to the 1977 Ogaden War ('77 War) between Ethiopia and Somalia, the city served as the principal seat of the Jarar Zone. At the onset of the '77 war, the provincial capital of the zone was moved more inland to Degehabur, which by the early 70's surpassed Aware both in population and in economic importance. The city was the seat of the British administration in the Haud prior to Somali independence in 1960. Aware has dry pasturage. However, the construction of private wells and ''birkas'' (underground concrete water tanks), a development which started in the 1950s and later on dramatically increased after the 1970s, offered a solution to the absence of permanent water. While this encouraged ''birka'' owners to further diversify traditional animal husbandry beyond camels and small ruminants into water-dependent cattle, this also increased livestock population in an overpopulated region, putting additional pressure on shrinking resource base; the vicinity of almost every settlement in Aware have become overgrazed by cattle belonging to the villagers, thus driving away ideal nomads raising camels and small ruminants in the eternal search for pasture and water.Impact of Insufficient Dayr Rains on Nomad Access to Food in the Former Eastern Hararghe Area of the Ethiopian Somali National State
UNDP Emergencies Unit for Ethiopia report, dated February 1997 (accessed 21 December 2008)
As part of their response to the local insurgency, the Ethiopian army enforced a trade embargo on part of the Somali Region which includes Aware. In early June 2007, a truck transporting goods (sugar, oil, and other food items) from Hargeysa was stopped by a military patrol 12 kilometers from Aware town, near the village of Dud Adaad. The patrol accused the truck's owner of delivering food to the Ogaden National Liberation Front, and confiscated his truck. In mid-September of the same year, three more commercial trucks traveling from Hargeysa to Aware were stopped and confiscated by the army at Bukudhaba village.


Demographics

Because of its high population and the large territory encompassed, Aware Woreda surpasses the threshold needed to be upgraded to a Zone status. This conversion to the Zone status is widely expected and will most certainly happen within the next regional parliamentary sessions in 2018/2019. The redistricting will see Aware split from Degehabur Zone. The 2007 Census conducted by the Central Statistical Agency of Ethiopia (CSA) was deemed unsatisfactory due to ongoing war between the ONLF and Ethiopian defense forces with Aware at its epicenter. The 1997 national census reported a total population for this woreda of 103,337, of whom 55,839 were men and 47,498 were women; 22,518 or 21.79% of its population were urban dwellers. The largest ethnic group reported in Aware was the Somali. The woreda is exclusively inhabited by the Ree-Isaaq subclan of the Ogaden clan family.


Notes

{{Districts of the Somali Region Districts of Somali Region