Origins Tadesse Tamrat records that archeologists discovered "some remains of Christian settlements", dated to the late first millennium of the current era.
19th century When the missionary
Johann Ludwig Krapf was led as a prisoner from Adare Bille's capital to the Teledere House in April 1843 he had passed through Kombolcha, which he described as a village near the source of the
Borkana River.
20th century Kombolcha was described during the
Italian occupation as having postal and telephone service, a clinic, a general store, a barrack village of the A.A.S.S., as well as other improvements intended for Italians. The city was used as a base by the
United Nations relief organization and other humanitarian groups during the
1984 famine. On 19 November 1989 the
Tigrayan People's Liberation Front (TPLF) claimed to have captured Kombolcha. However, the highway from Kombolcha to
Assab was not fully brought under TPLF control until the
Derg was expelled from
Tigray later that year. During the
Tigray War, Tigrayan forces said they had captured the town on 31 October 2021. The Ethiopian government accused the Tigrayan forces of killing
100 youth in the town on 1 November 2021, Tigrayan forces denied the claim. The Ethiopian Government claimed that the
TPLF had "ransacked and destroyed Kombolcha's infrastructure" after its capture.
Al Jazeera and BBC reported that WFP suspended food distribution in Dessie and Kombolcha due this mass looting of the supplies. Most of the construction equipment of the
Awash–Weldiya Railway project was looted or destroyed, and part of the infrastructure of the almost-finished railway, such as tunnels and bridges, was damaged. The disruption has thrown several thousand railway workers out of work. the railway construction site was used instead as a camp for
internally displaced persons. == Demographics ==