Sokota
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Sekota, also spelled Sokota, Sakota, Soqota (
Amharic Amharic is an Ethio-Semitic language, which is a subgrouping within the Semitic branch of the Afroasiatic languages. It is spoken as a first language by the Amhara people, and also serves as a lingua franca for all other metropolitan populati ...
: ሰቆጣ; formerly ሰቈጣ) is a town and separate
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 ...
in northern
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 ...
. The name is likely from the Agaw word ''sakute/ሳቑጠ'', "fortified village." Located in the Wag Hemra Zone of the
Amhara Region The Amhara Region (), officially the Amhara National Regional State (), is a Regions of Ethiopia, regional state in northern Ethiopia and the homeland of the Amhara people, Amhara, Awi people, Awi, Xamir people, Xamir, Argobba people, Argobba, a ...
, Sekota has a latitude and longitude of and an elevation of 2266 meters above sea level. It is surrounded by
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 ...
of Soqota. About 6 kilometers from Sekota is the church Wuqir Meskale Kristos, where the mummified corpses of several Wagshums lies.


History

Philip Briggs speculates that this town may be identified with the mysterious
Kubar Kubar also known as Ku'bar or Kuber is the name of the last capital of the Kingdom of Aksum and the residence of the Ethiopian ruler mentioned in several medieval Arabic sources. History It is first mentioned by the 10th century geographer al- Ya ...
, said by al-
Ya'qubi ʾAbū al-ʿAbbās ʾAḥmad bin ʾAbī Yaʿqūb bin Ǧaʿfar bin Wahb bin Waḍīḥ al-Yaʿqūbī (died 897/8), commonly referred to simply by his nisba al-Yaʿqūbī, was an Arab Muslim geographer. Life Ya'qubi was born in Baghdad to a fam ...
and al- Masudi to have succeeded
Axum Axum, also spelled Aksum (), is a town in the Tigray Region of Ethiopia with a population of 66,900 residents (as of 2015). It is the site of the historic capital of the Aksumite Empire. Axum is located in the Central Zone of the Tigray Re ...
as the capital of Ethiopia. Sekota is the historic seat of the
Wagshum Until the end of the Ethiopian monarchy in 1974, there were two categories of nobility in Ethiopia and Eritrea. The Mesafint ( , modern transcription , singular መስፍን , modern , "prince"), the hereditary royal nobility, formed the upper ...
, the former ruler of Lasta, who claimed to trace an unbroken succession back to the last king of the
Zagwe dynasty The Zagwe dynasty () was a medieval Agaw monarchy that ruled the northern parts of Ethiopia and Eritrea. It ruled large parts of the territory from approximately 1137 to 1270 AD, when the last Zagwe King Za-Ilmaknun was killed in battle by the ...
. However, verification for this tradition is slight. This town is not mentioned in the surviving records until 1746, when the soldiers of Emperor Iyasu II burned it down. The traveler Augustus B. Wylde wrote in the 1890s that the palace of the Wagshums in this town had been built around 1650. It was a three-storey structure which could not be dated with any precision, but he believed the masons and craftsmen were some of those who had worked at Gondar."Local History in Ethiopia"
The Nordic Africa Institute website (accessed 22 January 2009)
Nathaniel Pearce, notes that Sekota was where '' Ras'' Haile Wand Bewossen had his palace in 1813, and performed his annual review of his troops on 17 Masqaram, as was the custom. Charles Beke, who passed through Sekota in April 1843, described it as "a place of considerable size but is so very straggling that it is not easy to form a definite idea on the subject. It has a large market, held on Tuesday and Wednesday weekly, which is frequented by the merchants of the south and west, this place is the grand center of the salt-trade, the Tigre merchants coming thus far only, and then returning." In Wylde's time, the market at Sekota was still held each week on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.


20th century

During the
Second Italo-Ethiopian War The Second Italo-Ethiopian War, also referred to as the Second Italo-Abyssinian War, was a war of aggression waged by Fascist Italy, Italy against Ethiopian Empire, Ethiopia, which lasted from October 1935 to February 1937. In Ethiopia it is oft ...
, Sekota was occupied by the Italians on 28 March 1936. During their occupation, the Italians built a road to Sekota passable by motorcars, and repaired the town's mosque. Beatrice Playne visited the town in late autumn of 1948, and found it "quite the most attractive Ethiopian town I have seen". She describes its "two-storied, stone houses, each with a little private garden, lying snugly amongst the surrounding wall of hills, like a Cotswold village", and its government offices were in "a low, Italian building in a square of grass." Sekota was briefly held by the Tigrayan People's Liberation Front (TPLF) during the
Ethiopian Civil War The Ethiopian Civil War was a civil war in Ethiopia and present-day Eritrea, fought between the Ethiopian military junta known as the Derg and Ethiopian-Eritrean anti-government rebels from 12 September 1974 to 28 May 1991. The Derg overthre ...
around 1980. In 1988, Sekota was the base of the Ethiopian People's Democratic Movement, founded by a group of former EPRP fighters, which operated in northern Wollo jointly with the TPLF. The town holds an EPDM war memorial.Sekota City Administratio
Sekota City Profile
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21st century


Tigray War

EEPA an NGO, reported that the Tigray Defence Forces controlled Sekota in Amhara on 16 August 2021.Situation Report EEPA HORN No. 201 – 17 August 2021
Europe External Programme with Africa
Government forces then retook the town on 22 December 2021


Demographics

Based on the 2007 national census conducted by the Central Statistical Agency of Ethiopia (CSA), this town has a total population of 22,346, of whom 10,760 are men and 11,586 women. The majority of the inhabitants practiced Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity, with 95.98% reporting that as their religion, while 3.8% were
Muslim Muslims () are people who adhere to Islam, a Monotheism, monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God ...
.Census 2007 Tables: Amhara Region
Tables 2.1, 2.4, 2.5, 3.1, 3.2 and 3.4.
The 1994 census reported this town had a total population of 7,922 of whom 3,476 were males and 4,446 were females.


References

{{Authority control Populated places in the Amhara Region