Elidar is a town in north-eastern

Ethiopia Ethiopia, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country located in the Horn of Africa region of East Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the north, Djibouti to the northeast, Somalia to the east, Ken ...

. Located in Administrative Zone 1 of the

Afar Region The Afar Region (; ; ), formerly known as Region 2, is a Regions of Ethiopia, regional state in northeastern Ethiopia and the homeland of the Afar people. Its capital is the planned city of Semera, which lies on the paved Awash, Ethiopia, Awash� ...

, in the angle formed by the border with

Djibouti Djibouti, officially the Republic of Djibouti, is a country in the Horn of Africa, bordered by Somalia to the south, Ethiopia to the southwest, Eritrea in the north, and the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden to the east. The country has an area ...

to the south, and

Eritrea Eritrea, officially the State of Eritrea, is a country in the Horn of Africa region of East Africa, with its capital and largest city being Asmara. It is bordered by Ethiopia in the Eritrea–Ethiopia border, south, Sudan in the west, and Dj ...

to the northeast. It has a latitude and longitude of with an elevation of 418 meters above sea level. Elidar is named for the salt pan that occupies the eastern end of Elidar woreda. In 2005, this town had an estimated total population of 2228, of whom 1232 were males and 996 were females.

History

Elidar existed at least as early as the 1930s, the period the Swiss wife of an Italian engineer recalled visiting a military fort there in her memoirs. Philip Briggs described Elidar (which he calls "Dobi") 60 years later as "little more than a collection of rickety shacks that provide shelter from the sun and sell lukewarm soda and beer." During the Eritrean-Ethiopian War, displaced Afar and non-Afar people from

Asseb Assab or Aseb (, ) is a port city in the Southern Red Sea Region of Eritrea. It is situated on the west coast of the Red Sea. Languages spoken in Assab are predominantly Afar, Tigrinya, and Arabic. After the Italian government took control of ...

and

Bure Bure may refer to: Places Belgium * Bure, Wallonia, Belgium, a small village in the Tellin municipality * Battle of Bure, a World War II battle during the Battle of the Bulge Eritrea and Ethiopia * Bure (disputed zone), on the border between Eri ...

took refuge at Elidar, before being transported to Logiya and

Mille Mille can refer to: People * Constantin Mille, Romanian journalist and politician * Mathieu Mille, French ice hockey player Places * Mille Lacs County, Minnesota * Mille Lacs Lake in Minnesota. * Mille River, a tributary of the Awash River ...

, both of which had better resources to handle these refugees. Some of the displaced people were sheltered at the local school."Humanitarian Needs of War-Displaced People in Northern and Northern - Eastern Ethiopia"
UNDP Emergencies Unit for Ethiopia report, dated June 1998 (accessed 13 January 2009)

References

{{reflist Populated places in the Afar Region