Sheraro (), also spelt Shiraro, is a town and separate
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 ...
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 ...
. It is located in the
North Western Zone of the Tigray Region, at an elevation of 1246 meters above sea level. It is the administrative center of
Tahtay Adiyabo
Tahtay Adiyabo () is a woreda in the Tigray Region of Ethiopia. Part of the North Western Zone, Tahtay Adiyabo is bordered on the south by Asigede Tsimbela, on the southwest by the Tekezé River on the north by Eritrea, and on the east by La'i ...
. It is near the border with
Eritrea
Eritrea ( ; ti, ኤርትራ, Ertra, ; ar, إرتريا, ʾIritriyā), officially the State of Eritrea, is a country in the Horn of Africa region of Eastern Africa, with its capital and largest city at Asmara. It is bordered by Ethiopia ...
.
Between January 1995 and June 1998,
SUR Construction built two road segments connecting Shiraro with
Shire
Shire is a traditional term for an administrative division of land in Great Britain and some other English-speaking countries such as Australia and New Zealand. It is generally synonymous with county. It was first used in Wessex from the beginn ...
to the east and
Humera
Humera (; ) is a town in the Kafta Humera woreda in the Tigray Region of Ethiopia. Located in the Western Zone the town has an elevation of above sea level. The Tekezé river borders the town to the north. Humera is a very important regional ...
to the west, totalling in length 139.5 kilometers.
History
Along with
Zana, Sheraro was an early hotbed of
Tigrayan People's Liberation Front
The Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF; ti, ህዝባዊ ወያነ ሓርነት ትግራይ, lit=Popular Struggle for the Freedom of Tigray), also called the Tigrayan People's Liberation Front, is a left-wing ethnic nationalist paramilita ...
(TPLF) support. According to Gebru Tareke, the TPLF made Sheraro its base between 1979 and 1980, not only creating a support infrastructure there but also cultivating the land to grow cereals such as corn and sorghum, and cash crops like sesame. Eventually, the
Derg, the ruling military junta of Ethiopia, directed a military campaign to crush the TPLF at its base. On 12 February 1980, they launched Operation Sheraro, in which four brigades of 4,000 men under the command of Colonel
Tariku Ayne Tariku may refer to:
*Tariku River, a river in the Papua province of Indonesia
*Tariku language, one of the Lakes Plain languages
* Tarikuiyeh, village in Kerman Province, Iran, also known as Tārīkū
Name
Tariku (Amharic: ታሪኩ) is a male na ...
advanced first to the TPLF base on the
Sur River, which they destroyed then on 25 February departed for Shiraro, which they found deserted and the TPLF positioned on the heights. On the next day, although without intelligence about their opponents, the Derg soldiers advanced into an open field—where the TPLF ambushed them. After four hours of fierce fighting, the four brigades of the defenders dissolved and the men retreated in disarray. Their casualties were 117 dead (including three battalion and three company commanders) and 292 wounded (including 11 officers).
When the Derg evacuated the town for the last time in 1985, allegedly the soldiers left land mines and hidden bombs which injured some people who had returned from hiding in the countryside.
[ Shiraro was subjected to an aerial attack by Derg aircraft on 12 December 1988, which killed 8 people.
Sheraro experienced shelling on 21 October 1998, during the Eritrean-Ethiopian War. Its inhabitants and refugees from the surrounding area who had sought safety in the town fled to a camp near Zeban Gedena, about 15 kilometers to the southeast.
]
Demographics
Based on the 2007 national census conducted by the Central Statistical Agency
The Central Statistical Agency (CSA; Amharic: ማዕከላዊ ስታቲስቲክስ ኤጀንሲ) is an agency of the government of Ethiopia designated to provide all surveys and censuses for that country used to monitor economic and social growt ...
of Ethiopia (CSA), this town has a total population of 17,045, of whom 8,163 are men and 8,882 women. The majority of the inhabitants said they practiced Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity
The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church ( am, የኢትዮጵያ ኦርቶዶክስ ተዋሕዶ ቤተ ክርስቲያን, ''Yäityop'ya ortodoks täwahedo bétäkrestyan'') is the largest of the Oriental Orthodox Churches. One of the few Chris ...
, with 93.2% reporting that as their religion, while 6.54% of the population were Muslim
Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abrah ...
.
According to the 1994 national census, its total population was 8,415 of whom 3,881 were men and 4,534 were women. "["Local History in Ethiopia"]
The Nordic Africa Institute website (accessed 12 December 2007)
Ethiopian Civil War
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 ...
, on 12 December 1988, Sheraro was bombed from the air by the Ethiopian National Defence Forces
The Ethiopian National Defense Force (ENDF) ( am, የኢፌዲሪ መከላከያ ሠራዊት, Ye’īfēdērī mekelakeya šerawīt, lit=FDRE Defense Force) is the military force of Ethiopia. Civilian control of the military is carried out t ...
, and eight people were killed.
Tigray War
During the Tigray War
The Tigray War; ; . was an armed conflict that lasted from 3 November 2020 to 3 November 2022. The war was primarily fought in the Tigray Region of Ethiopia between the Ethiopian federal government and Eritrea on one side, and the Tigray Peop ...
, the town was the site of clashes between the TDF and the EDF EDF may refer to:
Organisations
* Eclaireurs de France, a French Scouting association
* Education for Development Foundation, a Thai charity
* Électricité de France, a French energy company
** EDF Energy, their British subsidiary
** EDF Luminus, ...
.
Amid renewed fighting in the region the town was taken by Eritrean and Ethiopian forces on 13 September 2022.
References
{{Districts of the Tigray Region
Populated places in the Tigray Region