Selekhlekha(ሰለኽለኻ) (also transliterated Selekhlekha) is a town in
Tigray,
Ethiopia
Ethiopia, , om, Itiyoophiyaa, so, Itoobiya, ti, ኢትዮጵያ, Ítiyop'iya, aa, Itiyoppiya officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country in the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the Er ...
. Located in the
Semien Mi'irabawi (North Western) Zone of the
Tigray Region
The Tigray Region, officially the Tigray National Regional State, is the northernmost Regions of Ethiopia, regional state in Ethiopia. The Tigray Region is the homeland of the Tigrayan, Irob people, Irob, and Kunama people, Kunama people. Its ...
, this town has a latitude and longitude of with an elevation of 2107 meters above sea level. It is the administrative center of
Medebay Zana woreda
Districts of Ethiopia, also called woredas ( am, ወረዳ; ''woreda''), are the third level of the administrative divisions of Ethiopia – after '' zones'' and the '' regional states''.
These districts are further subdivided into a number of ...
.
This town serves as the primary market center for much of the surrounding area.
Sorghum
''Sorghum'' () is a genus of about 25 species of flowering plants in the grass family ( Poaceae). Some of these species are grown as cereals for human consumption and some in pastures for animals. One species is grown for grain, while many ot ...
and
finger millet
''Eleusine coracana'', or finger millet, also known as ragi in India, kodo in Nepal, is an annual herbaceous plant widely grown as a cereal crop in the arid and semiarid areas in Africa and Asia. It is a tetraploid and self-pollinating species ...
are brought from the lowland portions of
La'ilay and
Tahtay Adiyabo for sale.
History
Selekh Lekha is mentioned in the ''Royal Chronicle'' as where ''
Ras''
Mikael Sehul and his puppet Emperor
Tekle Haymanot II spent one night in June 1770 during their campaign through Tigray. The chronicler describes the place as "a holy land where there is no breath of scandal."
Two British hunters passed through Selekh Lekha and its neighbor
Gilgil Beles
Gilgil, Kenya, is a town in Nakuru County, Kenya. The town is located between Naivasha and Nakuru and along the Nairobi - Nakuru highway. It is to the west of the Gilgil River, which flows south to feed Lake Naivasha.
Gilgil has a population ...
in January 1923, later describing the settlements in unflattering and dismissive words. In February 1936, during the opening moves of the
Second Italian-Abyssinian War, the
Blackshirt "21st April" Division, with the
"Gavininana" and
"Gran Sasso" Divisions clashed with the soldiers of
Ras Imru Haile Selassie near Selekh Lekha, as part of the
Second Battle of Tembien.
["Local History in Ethiopia"]
The Nordic Africa Institute website (accessed 6 December 2007)
During the
Italian occupation, a
leprosarium
A leper colony, also known by many other names, is an isolated community for the quarantining and treatment of lepers, people suffering from leprosy. ''M. leprae'', the bacterium responsible for leprosy, is believed to have spread from East Afr ...
was built in Selekh Lekha; this was abandoned by its Italian staff on 30 March 1941, and later pillaged and destroyed by the locals.
[ The town was later the center of heavy fighting between the 604th Army Corps of the ]Derg
The Derg (also spelled Dergue; , ), officially the Provisional Military Administrative Council (PMAC), was the military junta that ruled Ethiopia, then including present-day Eritrea, from 1974 to 1987, when the military leadership formally " c ...
's Third Revolutionary Army
Third or 3rd may refer to:
Numbers
* 3rd, the ordinal form of the cardinal number 3
* , a fraction of one third
* 1⁄60 of a ''second'', or 1⁄3600 of a ''minute''
Places
* 3rd Street (disambiguation)
* Third Avenue (disambiguation)
* Hi ...
and troops of the Tigrayan People's Liberation Front during the Battle of Shire, which ended on 19 February 1989 with a crushing defeat for the Derg.
Demographics
Based on figures from the Central Statistical Agency in 2005, Selekh Lekha has an estimated total population of 7,391, of whom 3,529 are men and 3,862 are women.CSA 2005 National Statistics
Table B.4 The 1994 census reported it had a total population of 4252 of whom 1,879 were males and 2,373 were females.
Notes
{{reflist
Populated places in the Tigray Region