Origins near Dire Dawa The region was already inhabited in Mesolithic times, as revealed by rock paintings and
Middle Stone Age artifacts in the cave of
Porc-Épic and Laga-Oda only a few kilometers from Dire Dawa. The area surrounding Dire Dawa is believed to have been a settlement of the extinct
Harla people. Historically, the area used to be part of
Adal Sultanate during the medieval times. During the 17th century onwards, the region was considered the domain of the
Emirate of Harar until Menelik's conquest of the kingdom in 1887 and consequently became incorporated into modern Ethiopia from thereon.
Foundation (1902–1936) The present-day town of Dire Dawa (327km by rail from Djibouti), however, is of very recent origin. It owes its foundation to a technical problem: when it became impossible to lay the
Addis Ababa-Djibouti Railway via
Harar because of the steep access to the town,
Emperor Menelik II accepted (in a letter dated 5 November 1896) that the first part of the line might finish at a village at the foot of the mountains, which should be named Addis Harar ("New Harrar"). The new name, however, did not win recognition. For financial and diplomatic reasons the railway was not continued until 1909 and the final inauguration of the whole line from Djibouti to Addis Ababa-again delayed by the revolution of 1916-only took place on 7 June 1917. During all this time, Dire Dawa was practically the town profited much and became a "boom city", attracting most of the trade which formerly passed through Harar. By 1902 the Ethiopian government, anticipating the future economic importance of Dire Dawa, had already transferred the customs station for trade with the Red Sea from Gildessa to Dire Dawa. During the 1920s, the south-eastern part of the town also started to develop. Its inhabitants were mostly Gurgura and Oromo, the other Ethiopians playing only a minor role. The population here grew to 3,000, while that of the whole town numbered 20,000. Between the two World Wars, two hospitals were established in Dire Dawa, one by the railway company and another in 1934 by the government. Education on a primary level was provided by a government school, a Catholic mission school and several schools for the different foreign communities in the town (Greek, Italian, Indian). Dire Dawa's first governor was
Ato Mersha Nahusenay. Formerly the governor of the strategic village of Gildessa and its environs, Mersha was instrumental in the construction of the first railway and establishment of the railway city. The imperial railway company (Cie) played a key role in the early development of the city, particularly Gezira (aka Kezira), under the authority of the Ethiopian government. The original failed company was reorganized as the joint-government
Franco-Ethiopian Railway in 1908 and, after a period of financial negotiation and recapitalization, construction began anew, linking the city with the Ethiopian capital
Addis Ababa in 1917. The Dire Dawa-Harar road was improved in 1928, shortening the travel time to only a few hours. In 1931, the
Bank of Ethiopia opened its first branch in the city
Italian occupation (1936–1941) On 9 May 1936 Dire Dawa was occupied by Italian troops coming from Harar, after Somali troops from Djibouti had prevented looting during the period of interregnum.
Badoglio and
Graziani celebrated their meeting on the railway station of Dire Dawa. The Italians constructed several new buildings in Dire Dawa, especially for the administration and the Fascist party. They also improved the roads and enlarged the airport so that their military planes could take off from there to bomb the patriot forces in the Gara Mulleta. As for other towns, the Italians conceived a "piano regolatore" for the construction of an Italian town in Dire Dawa. However, their occupation ended before they could complete these plans. During the
Italian invasion,
Mussolini ordered that Addis Ababa and Dire Dawa be spared air attacks (which included the use of
chemical weapons such as
mustard gas) and other destruction as a response to the demands of the United States and certain European countries for the safety of their citizens. The Italian army entered the country from the colonies of
Eritrea in the north and
Somalia in the southeast. Following all major engagements of the war, Dire Dawa was the location of the meeting of the two Italian forces. General
Graziani's units, advancing from Harar, reached the city's barbed-wire fence on 6 May 1936, the day after the occupation of
Addis Ababa and Emperor
Haile Selassie's flight along the railroad to
Djibouti and
Palestine. They were met by two French armed cars: the railway remained under French administration and they had remained to protect French interests. The next day, the first train under Italian control left Addis Ababa: it brought Italy's 46th Infantry Regiment and finally closed the pincers of the two Italian invasion forces. The occupation of the town was more or less a formality, although the
antifascist resistance called the
Arbegnoch "Patriots" continued to operate throughout the conflict. It was officially known by its Italian spelling
Dire Daua during the occupation.
Late Imperial (1941–1974) In June 1940 the British started to bomb the town and on 29 March 1941 Dire Dawa was occupied by the Allied forces from Harar. The town remained under British Military Administration, being the headquarters for the British Reserved Area, till it was handed over to the Ethiopian government in 1947. In the following decades the town greatly expanded and the population grew to 160,000. The infrastructure was ameliorated and several industrial plants were established. In 1955, a public address system was installed in the central square to receive and rebroadcast state radio transmissions. In May 1979, 250 Oromos who were detained in the prisons of Dire Dawa were executed by the
Derg regime.
Federal Democratic Republic (1991–present) Dire Dawa was occupied by the
EPRDF on 31 May 1991 and there were reports of about 100 people killed resisting the EPRDF. Both the
Issa and Gurgura Liberation Front and the
Oromo Liberation Front claimed the city. As a result, there were numerous clashes between the two groups from 1991 until 1993. When the
Somali Regional State was being established in 1993, it wanted Dire Dawa to be its capital. This was opposed by the
Oromia Region, of which Dire Dawa was part of at the time, so the federal government placed the city under its own jurisdiction to avoid territorial conflict between the two regions. On 24 June 2002, a small explosive was detonated at the headquarters of the Ethiopian Railway Commission in Dire Dawa. The Oromo Liberation Front afterwards claimed responsibility for this attack in retaliation "for the continuing harassment of Oromo students, merchants, and farmers by the Ethiopian government." Although blamed for other isolated incidents, this was the latest bombing inside Ethiopia for which the OLF claimed responsibility. Dire Dawa moved out of federal administration to become a chartered city in 2004 after the federal parliament approved the city charter in proclamation 416/2004. An overturned truck, heading from
Dengego to Dire Dawa, killed 41 people 4 March 2009. The truck was carrying an unknown number of day laborers when the accident happened, and 38 were immediately killed and as many as 50 were injured. Dead and injured were taken to Dil-chora Hospital in Dire Dawa. The cause was not immediately known. Currently, there are plans to revitalize the city. A historic and popular part of the city is to be demolished and replaced by a financial center, malls, mixed-use buildings, hotels, recreational facilities, and hospitals. As part of the plan, historical buildings will be renovated, and a new space will be allotted for building new homes and businesses for those displaced by the move. New roads, parks, and an industrial zone will also be built, and major railway project is expected to greatly increase business activity in the city. == Climate ==