Wukro is a town in northern Ethiopia

Ethiopia

Ethiopia , officially known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It is the second-most populous nation in Africa, with over 82 million inhabitants, and the tenth-largest by area, occupying 1,100,000 km2...

. Located in the Misraqawi

Misraqawi Zone

Misraqawi is a Zone in the Ethiopian Region of Tigray. Misraqawi is bordered on the east by the Afar Region, on the south by Debubawi , on the west by Mehakelegnaw and on the north by Eritrea. Its highest point is Mount Asimba...

 (Eastern) zone

Zones of Ethiopia

||The regions of Ethiopia are divided into 68 or more zones . The exact number of zones is unclear, as the names and number of zones given in documents by Ethiopia's Central Statistical Agency differ between 2005...

 of the Tigray

Tigray Region

Tigray Region is the northernmost of the nine ethnic regions of Ethiopia containing the homeland of the Tigray people. It was formerly known as Region 1...

 region

Regions of Ethiopia

||Ethiopia is divided into 9 ethnically-based administrative regions and two chartered cities...

 on the Asmara

Asmara

Asmara is the capital city and largest settlement in Eritrea, home to a population of around 579,000 people...

-Addis Ababa

Addis Ababa

Addis Ababa is the capital city of Ethiopia...

 highway, it is the administrative center of the district named after the town.

Overview

The rock-hewn churches around Wukro are the town's most distinctive landmarks; in the early twentieth century the town's name was changed from "Dongolo" to the Tigrigna

Tigrinya language

Tigrinya , also spelled Tigrigna, Tigrnia, Tigrina, Tigriña, less commonly Tigrinian, Tigrinyan, is a Semitic language spoken by the Tigrinya people in central Eritrea , where it is one of the two main languages of Eritrea, and in the Tigray Region of Ethiopia , where it...

 word for a structure carved from the living rock, Wukro.

Local industry includes Sheba Tannery, which is capable of processing 6,000 hides a day. Opened in 2004, the tannery is one of the 13 companies owned and managed by the Endowment Fund for the Rehabilitation of Tigray (EFFORT).

Kuwaiti Prime Minister Sheikh Nasser Mohammed Al-Ahmed Al-Sabah announced in July 2009, during a 3-day visit to Ethiopia, that his country would provide a $63 million loan to Ethiopia, part of which would be used to build a road between Wukro and Zalambessa near the Eritrean-Ethiopian border.

History

Francisco Álvares

Francisco Álvares

Francisco Álvares was a Portuguese missionary and explorer. In 1515 he traveled to Ethiopia as part of the Portuguese embassy to emperor Lebna Dengel accompanied by returning Ethiopian ambassador Matheus. The embassy arrived only in 1520 to Ethiopia where he joined long sought Portuguese envoy...

 was the first European recorded to have visited Wukro, when in 1521 he stayed at the royal inn or Betenegush. His account also includes a description of Maryam Wukro church "made in a rock, hewn and wrought with the pickaxe, with three aisles and their supports made of the rock itself." The next important European visit was in 1868 when Lieutenant-General Sir Robert Napier

Robert Napier, 1st Baron Napier of Magdala

Field Marshal Robert Cornelis Napier, 1st Baron Napier of Magdala, GCB, GCSI, CIE, FRS was a British soldier.-Early life:...

 passed through the village on his way to Magdela

Amba Mariam

Amba Mariam is a village in central Ethiopia. It was known as Magdala or Meqdela during the reign of Emperor Tewodros II of Ethiopia...

 where he defeated the Ethiopian Emperor Tewodros II

Tewodros II of Ethiopia

Tewodros II was the Emperor of Ethiopia from 1855 until his death....

. During their march through Wukro, members of the British army saw one of the Tigrayan rock-hewn churches, most likely Wukro Chirkos

Wukro Chirkos

Wukro Chirkos is a monolithic church in northern Ethiopia, on the northern edge of the town of Wukro near the main highway. From the time members of the British expedition of 1868 reported its existence until the early 20th century, it was the only rock-hewn church known to the outside world.Wukro...

, and were afterwards thought to be the first Europeans to see these unusual structures; another notable landmark is the more recent church Wukro Giyorgis Bete.

During the Italian occupation

Italian East Africa

Italian East Africa was an Italian colonial administrative subdivision established in 1936, resulting from the merger of the Ethiopian Empire with the old colonies of Italian Somaliland and Italian Eritrea. In August 1940, British Somaliland was conquered and annexed to Italian East Africa...

, one Francesco Baldassare started a mill in Wukro, but abandoned it when the Italians were defeated in 1941. Wukro was used as his headquarters by Blatta Haile Mariam Redda during the Woyane rebellion, until Ras Abebe Aregai

Abebe Aregai

Ras Abebe Aregai was Prime Minister of Ethiopia from 27 November 1957 until his death. During the Italian occupation, he led a group of resistance fighters that operated in Menz and Shewa...

 captured the town 17 October 1943. Dawit W. Girgis reports in his memoirs that in 1964, with the permission of Emperor Haile Selassie, the Israel

Israel

The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

is operated a secret base outside Wukro where members of the Anyanya

Anyanya

The Anyanya were a southern Sudanese separatist rebel army formed during the First Sudanese Civil War . A separate movement that rose during the Second Sudanese Civil War were, in turn, called Anyanya II...

 (a Sudanese rebel group) were trained in guerrila warfare.

During the Ethiopian Civil War

Ethiopian Civil War

The Ethiopian Civil War began on September 12, 1974 when the Marxist Derg staged a coup d'état against Emperor Haile Selassie, and lasted until the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front , a coalition of rebel groups, overthrew the government in 1991. The war overlapped other Cold War...

, Wukro was repeatedly attacked by Derg

Derg

The Derg or Dergue was a Communist military junta that came to power in Ethiopia following the ousting of Haile Selassie I. Derg, which means "committee" or "council" in Ge'ez, is the short name of the Coordinating Committee of the Armed Forces, Police, and Territorial Army, a committee of...

 aircraft in 1988, resulting in the deaths of a total of 175 residents.

Demographics

Based on the 2007 national census conducted by the Central Statistical Agency

Central Statistical Agency (Ethiopia)

The Central Statistical Agency is an agency of the government of Ethiopia designated to provide all surveys and censuses for that country used to monitor economic and social growth, as well as to act as an official training center in that field. It is part of the Ethiopian Ministry of Finance and...

, this town has a total population of 30,210, of whom 14,056 are men and 15,154 are women. A total of 9,383 households were counted in this town, resulting in an average of 3.22 persons to a household, and 8,993 housing units. The 1994 census reported the town had a total population of 16,421 of whom 7,427 were men and 8,994 were women. It is the largest settlement in Wukro

Wukro (woreda)

Wukro woreda, also known as Kilte Awulaelo, is one of the 36 woredas in the Tigray Region of Ethiopia. Part of the Misraqawi Zone, Wukro is bordered on the south by the Debubawi Zone, on the west by the Mehakelegnaw Zone, on the north by Hawzen, and on the east by Atsbi Wenberta. Wukro is the...

 woreda

Woreda

Woreda is an administrative division of Ethiopia , equivalent to a district . Woredas are composed of a number of Kebele, or neighborhood associations, which are the smallest unit of local government in Ethiopia...

.