Aware (woreda)

Aware (Somali: Awaare) is one of the woredas in the Somali Region of Ethiopia. Part of the Degehabur Zone, Aware is bordered on the south by Gunagadow, on the west by Degehabur, on the north by the Jijiga Zone, on the northeast by Somalia, and on the east by Misraq Gashamo. Towns in Aware include Aware, Daroor, Kam Aboker, and Rabaso. Gunagadow woreda was separated from Aware.

Overview

As part of the Haud, the lands in Aware are dry pasturage, which traditionally were abandoned by the local nomadic pastoralists for areas with abundant water (like Aynabo, Burco and Odweyne in Somaliland, or outside the Haud in Danot woreda with its wells) with the advent of the dry season. However, the construction of private birkas (underground concrete water tanks), a development which started in the 1950s and later on dramatically increased after the 1970s, offered a solution to the absence of permanent water. While this encouraged birka owners to further diversify traditional animal husbandry beyond camels and small ruminants into water-dependent cattle, this also increased livestock population in an overpopulated region, putting additional pressure on shrinking resource base; the vicinity of almost every settlement in Aware have become overgrazed by cattle belonging to the villagers, thus driving away ideal nomads raising camels and small ruminants in the eternal search for pasture and water.^[1]

As part of their response to the local insurgency, the Ethiopian army enforced a trade embargo on part of the Somali Region which includes Aware. In early June 2007, a truck transporting goods (sugar, oil, and other food items) from Hargeysa was stopped by a military patrol 12 kilometers from Aware town, near the village of Dud Adaad. The patrol accused the truck's owner of delivering food to the Ogaden National Liberation Front, and confiscated his truck. In mid-September of the same year, three more commercial trucks traveling from Hargeysa to Aware were stopped and confiscated by the army at Bukudhaba village.^[2]

Demographics

Based on the 2007 Census conducted by the Central Statistical Agency of Ethiopia (CSA), this woreda has a total population of 96,011, of whom 52,650 are men and 43,361 women. While 16,519 or 17.21% are urban inhabitants, a further 52,383 or 54.56% are pastoralists. 99.21% of the population said they were Muslim.^[3] This woreda is inhabited by the Ogaden and Isaaq Somali clans.^[1]

The 1997 national census reported a total population for this woreda of 103,337, of whom 55,839 were men and 47,498 were women; 22,518 or 21.79% of its population were urban dwellers. The largest ethnic group reported in Erer was the Somali.^[4]

Notes

1. Impact of Insufficient Deyr Rains on Nomad Access to Food in the Former Eastern Hararghe Area of the Ethiopian Somali National State UNDP Emergencies Unit for Ethiopia report, dated February 1997 (accessed 21 December 2008)
2. "Collective Punishment: 'Economic war': Confiscation of Livestock, the Trade Embargo, and Other Restrictions", Human Rights Watch, 11 June 2008 (accessed 24 February 2009)
3. Census 2007 Tables: Somali Region, Tables 2.1, 2.4, 3.1 and 3.4.
4. 1994 Population and Housing Census of Ethiopia: Results for Somali Region, Vol. 1 Tables 2.1, 2.12 (accessed 10 January 2009). The results of the 1994 census in the Somali Region were not satisfactory, so the census was repeated in 1997.

Coordinates: 8°35′N 44°00′E / 8.583°N 44.000°E