Debarwa ( ) is a market town in central Eritrea. It is situated about 25 kilometers south of the capital Asmara, and has a population of about 25,000 inhabitants. It is the capital of the Debarwa

district A district is a type of administrative division that, in some countries, is managed by the local government. Across the world, areas known as "districts" vary greatly in size, spanning regions or county, counties, several municipality, municipa ...

(''Tsilima'') in the

Debub Debub Region, also known as the South Region (Tigrinya: ዞባ ደቡብ, it, Regione del Sud), is an administrative region of Eritrea. The region was formed on 15 April 1996, from the historical provinces of Serae and Akele Guzai. It lies alo ...

("Southern") administrative

region In geography, regions, otherwise referred to as zones, lands or territories, are areas that are broadly divided by physical characteristics ( physical geography), human impact characteristics ( human geography), and the interaction of humanity an ...

(one of five in Eritrea).

History

Debarwa was formerly the capital of an Kingdom named

Medri Bahri Medri Bahri ( ti, ምድሪ ባሕሪ, English: Land of the Sea Kingdom), also known as Mereb Melash, was an Eritrean kingdom emerged in 1137 until conquest by the Ethiopian Empire in 1879. It was situated in modern-day Eritrea, and was ruled by ...

, which roughly translates as ''Land of the Sea''. It was ruled by the Bahr Negus (''King of the Sea''). The Portuguese expedition under

Cristóvão da Gama Cristóvão da Gama ( 1516 – 29 August 1542), anglicised as Christopher da Gama, was a Portuguese military commander who led a Portuguese army of 400 musketeers on a crusade in Ethiopia (1541–1543) against the Adal Muslim army of Imam A ...

spent the rainy season of 1542 in Debarwa as the guests of the Bahr Negus. The Ottomans invaded part of Medri Bahri in 1557, and for several decades struggled for control over the local population and their Ethiopian neighbors. By the time everything settled, the Ottomans were confined to

Suakin Suakin or Sawakin ( ar, سواكن, Sawákin, Beja: ''Oosook'') is a port city in northeastern Sudan, on the west coast of the Red Sea. It was formerly the region's chief port, but is now secondary to Port Sudan, about north. Suakin used to b ...

, Massawa, Hergigo and the immediate hinterlands, but at times their raids would reach into the Bogos, Hamasien and Habab districts of Eritrea. In 1576 the Ethiopian Emperor

Sarsa Dengel Sarsa Dengel ( gez, ሠርጸ ድንግል ; 1550 – 4 October 1597), also known as Sarsa the Great, was Emperor of Ethiopia, and a member of the Solomonic dynasty. His throne name was throne name Malak Sagad I (መለክ ሰገድ ). Biograp ...

attacked Debarwa whereupon the Turkish garrison surrendered with all it's firearms.

then seized the vast riches stored by the Turks in Debarwa and ordered the destruction of the mosque and the fort that was erected during the Ottoman occupation. In 1587, the Turks left the port of

Hirgigo Arkiko ( ar, حرقيقو, Afar and Saho: ''Hirg-Higo'', alternately Archigo, Arqiqo, Ercoco, Hirgigo, Hargigo or Harkiko) is a town in the Northern Red Sea region of Eritrea. Situated on the Red Sea, it lies on the mainland across from the city ...

and advanced inland to take Debarwa again but was again defeated by

who killed the Turkish commander Kadawred Pasha in battle. The city was hit hard by a

typhus Typhus, also known as typhus fever, is a group of infectious diseases that include epidemic typhus, scrub typhus, and murine typhus. Common symptoms include fever, headache, and a rash. Typically these begin one to two weeks after exposure. ...

epidemic in 1893, which followed the misery of the Great Famine (1888-1892). A French visitor described Debarwa as "decimated", and all that was left of the once prosperous town were "a few piles of stones, an almost ruined church, and a few wretched hovels".Richard Pankhurst, ''An Introduction to the Medical History of Ethiopia'' (Trenton: Red Sea Press, 1990), p. 36

Demographics

The majority of the population in Debarwa belongs to the ''Bihér-Tigrigna'' (

Tigrinya (; also spelled Tigrigna) is an Ethio-Semitic language commonly spoken Eritrea and in northern Ethiopia's Tigray Region by the Tigrinya and Tigrayan peoples. It is also spoken by the global diaspora of these regions. History and literatur ...

-speaking) ethnic group. In terms of faith, local residents are mainly adherents of the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahdo Church.

Economy

Local people bring produce such as potatoes, tomatoes, chickens and grain to the market every Saturday. Aside from being a market town, it is also a mining town with resources of high grade

gold Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile me ...

copper Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu (from la, cuprum) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkis ...

silver Silver is a chemical element with the symbol Ag (from the Latin ', derived from the Proto-Indo-European ''h₂erǵ'': "shiny" or "white") and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it exhibits the highest electrical ...

and

zinc Zinc is a chemical element with the symbol Zn and atomic number 30. Zinc is a slightly brittle metal at room temperature and has a shiny-greyish appearance when oxidation is removed. It is the first element in group 12 (IIB) of the periodi ...

, and an important transport route between the south-west corner of Zoba Debub and Asmara. The Japanese company Hitachi once operated a mine near Debarwa, but it was shut down in the 1960s due to the outbreak of the

Eritrean War of Independence The Eritrean War of Independence was a war for independence which Eritrean independence fighters waged against successive Ethiopian governments from 1 September 1961 to 24 May 1991. Eritrea was an Italian colony from the 1880s until the ...

from Ethiopia.

References

{{Reflist Southern Region (Eritrea) Populated places in Eritrea