Segheneytī (; sometimes anglicized as Segheneity and known also as Saganeiti, Seganeiti, Seganeyti, Segeleyti, Segeneyti, Segeneytī, Segheneiti)
/ref> is a small town in the Southern Region of

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 ...

. Segeneyti was the third largest settlement in the historical

province A province is an administrative division within a country or sovereign state, state. The term derives from the ancient Roman , which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire, Roman Empire's territorial possessions ou ...

Akele Guzai Akele Guzai ( Tigrinya: ምድረ ቡር) was a province in the interior of Eritrea until 1996, when the newly independent national government consolidated all provinces into the Northern Red Sea and Debub (Southern) regions. The province was b ...

, after Mendefera and Senafe. Segheneyti is widely known in

for its production of

Prickly pear cactus ''Opuntia'', commonly called the prickly pear cactus, is a genus of flowering plants in the cactus family Cactaceae, many known for their flavorful fruit and showy flowers. Cacti are native to the Americas, and are well adapted to arid climat ...

, which is locally known as Beles. The

fruit In botany, a fruit is the seed-bearing structure in flowering plants (angiosperms) that is formed from the ovary after flowering. Fruits are the means by which angiosperms disseminate their seeds. Edible fruits in particular have long propaga ...

was first introduced to the

town A town is a type of a human settlement, generally larger than a village but smaller than a city. The criteria for distinguishing a town vary globally, often depending on factors such as population size, economic character, administrative stat ...

by a

priest A priest is a religious leader authorized to perform the sacred rituals of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and one or more deity, deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in parti ...

in the 1950s. It is widely eaten as a

snack A snack is a small portion of Human food, food generally Eating, eaten between meals. Snacks come in a variety of forms including Food packaging, packaged snack foods and other processed foods, as well as items made from fresh ingredients at ho ...

and as

fruit preserve Fruit preserves are preparations of fruits whose main preserving agent is sugar and sometimes Acid#In food, acid, often stored in glass jars and used as a condiment or Spread (food), spread. There are many varieties of fruit preserves globall ...

. Large-scale production of the

has become more common in the area as it has both economic and health benefits. Segheneyti is located at the eastern escarpment of

which is suitable for the

plant Plants are the eukaryotes that form the Kingdom (biology), kingdom Plantae; they are predominantly Photosynthesis, photosynthetic. This means that they obtain their energy from sunlight, using chloroplasts derived from endosymbiosis with c ...

as it favours warm climate and rocky environment.

Notable People

* Degiat Bahta Hagos - Eritrean nobleman and resistance fighter.

References

Populated places in Eritrea {{Eritrea-geo-stub