Omorate is a town in southern 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...

 near the Kenya

Kenya

Kenya , officially known as the Republic of Kenya, is a country in East Africa that lies on the equator, with the Indian Ocean to its south-east...

n border. Located in the Debub Omo Zone

Debub Omo Zone

Debub Omo is a Zone in the Ethiopian Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples Region . Debub Omo is bordered on the south by Kenya, on the southwest by the Ilemi Triangle, on the west by Bench Maji, on the northwest by Keficho Shekicho, on the north by Semien Omo, on the northeast by the...

 of the Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples' Region, this village has a latitude and longitude of 4°48′N 35°58′E with an elevation of 395 meters above sea level. It is the administrative center of Kuraz

Kuraz

Kuraz is a woreda in the extreme south of Ethiopia. Part of the Debub Omo Zone of the Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples' Region, Kuraz is bordered on the south by Kenya, on the west by the Ilemi Triangle , on the north by Selamago, and on the east by the Omo River which separates it from...

 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...

.

History

Although 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...

 there was an official in residence at Kelem (as it was known then), who encouraged the local Daasanach to resist and repulse an advance of 3,000 men of the King's African Rifles

King's African Rifles

The King's African Rifles was a multi-battalion British colonial regiment raised from the various British possessions in East Africa from 1902 until independence in the 1960s. It performed both military and internal security functions within the East African colonies as well as external service as...

 in early 1941, until the 1970s Omorate was little more than one of a handful of scattered police stations in this part of Ethiopia.

In a more recent publication, although describing Omorate as an "archetypical tropical backwater", Philip Briggs notes that the village is "epitomised by the relics of the agricultural cotton

Cotton production in Ethiopia

Cotton is grown throughout Ethiopia at elevations above 1000 meters and below 1400 meters. Because most of the lowlands lack adequate rainfall, cotton cultivation depends largely on irrigation.-History:...

 scheme that was initiated with North Korean funds in the Mengistu

Mengistu Haile Mariam

Mengistu Haile Mariam is a politician who was formerly the most prominent officer of the Derg, the Communist military junta that governed Ethiopia from 1974 to 1987, and the President of the People's Democratic Republic of Ethiopia from 1987 to 1991...

 era and faltered to a standstill more than a decade back. The retrenched victims of this aborted masterplan still haunt the bars of Omorate, willing to talk the ear off any stranger about their misfortune".

Demographics

Based on figures from 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...

in 2005, Omorate has an estimated total population of 3363, of whom 1842 were males and 1521 were females. The 1994 national census reported this town had a total population of 1,857 of whom 1,020 were males and 837 were females.

External links

• Dassanech - The indigenous people of Omorate, from the BBC series Tribes