During the nineteenth century, Degehabur was an important stopping point for caravans crossing the
Haud for
Hargeisa and
Berbera, but when Major H.G.C. Swayne travelled through the area in 1893, he found it abandoned and uses it as an example of the destruction caused by "the insecurity resulting from inter-tribal feuds." According to Swayne, at the time of his visit "there were formerly many square miles of
jowdri cultivation, which has been abandoned within the last few years, and now there is only left an immense area of stubble and the ruins of the village. Dagahbur used to be a thriving settlement of one thousand five hundred inhabitants ... now not a hut is left." In the 1920s Degehabur started to recover. It was said that there were some two hundred villages within the distance of a day's travel and that these used the market at Degehabur. By 1931 there were motorable roads in five directions out from the town. Wealthy inhabitants had started erecting two-story buildings. In 1927, Ethiopian soldiers attacked the British governor of Somaliland while he was in Degehabur on a hunting trip, killing eight of his bodyguards. The British Government protested but was met with little response from
Ras Tafari, who claimed that he was not able to keep some of his men in order. Due to its strategic location, Degehabur used as by
Dejazmach Nasibu Emmanual as his headquarters at the beginning of the
Second Italo-Abyssinian War. Despite the construction of a series of fortifications south of the town, the Italians under General
Rodolfo Graziani defeated the Ethiopian defenders in the
Battle of the Ogaden, and occupied Degehabur 30 April 1936. In the
East African campaign in
World War II, the
Nigerian Brigade drove the Italians from the town in March 1941. During the 1960s, Ethiopian Emperor
Haile Selassie responded to the
1963–1965 Ogaden rebellion with brutal and repressive crackdowns against the Somalis in the
Ogaden region. Most infamous of these reprisals was on the town of Degehabur in what became known locally as the "Kanone Massacre". Degehabur was bombarded by artillery from nearby high ground, which was followed by a killing spree when army troops later entered the settlement. Degahabur was defended by the 11th Brigade of the
Ethiopian Army at the beginning of the
Ogaden War, until the unit was ordered at the end of July 1977 to withdraw to Jijiga. It was recaptured by the 69th Brigade and the Third Cuban Tank Brigade 6 March 1978. Haji Ahmed nur Sheikh Mumin,
imam of the Degehabur mosque, was one of those arrested in 1994 for supporting the
Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF).
Amnesty International reported in 1996 that he was still in prison waiting for court trial. Partly in response to this attack, the Ethiopian Army began confiscating commercial vehicles that moved goods into the conflict-affected zones of Somali Region. In May 2007 the last major trade convoy left
Hargeysa, consisting of 18 trucks stocked with food items and clothing. This convoy stopped near Degehabur and all 18 trucks were confiscated by the army and taken to the military base in that town. At the end of September 2007, four months later, according to their owners, all 18 trucks were still impounded at the military base. ==Demographics==