Kobo, Ethiopia

Infobox Settlement
official_name = Kobo
native_name =


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pushpin_label_position =bottom
pushpin_mapsize = 300
pushpin_map_caption =Location in Ethiopia
subdivision_type = Country
subdivision_type1 = Region
subdivision_name =‎ Ethiopia
subdivision_name1 = Amhara Region
subdivision_type2 = Zone
subdivision_name2 = Semien Wollo Zone
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population_as_of= 2005
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population_total = 36,147 (est)
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timezone = EAT
utc_offset = +3
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latd=12|latm=09|lats=|latNS=N
longd=39|longm=38|longs=|longEW=E
elevation_footnotes=
elevation_m = 1468
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Kobo is a town in northern Ethiopia. Located in the Semien Wollo Zone of the Amhara Region, this town has a longitude and latitude of coord|12|09|N|39|38|E with an elevation of 1468 meters above sea level. It is the administrative center of Kobo woreda.

Kobo is located on the Addis Ababa-Adigrat highway, 189 kilometers south of Mekele. A road from Kobo west to Lalibela has existed since the 1930s, but as of 1999, it is usable only in good weather by four-wheel vehicles. [http://130.238.24.99/library/resources/dossiers/local_history_of_ethiopia/k/ORTKOB.pdf "Local History in Ethiopia"] (pdf) The Nordic Africa Institute website (accessed 28 November 2007)]

Based on figures from the Central Statistical Agency in 2005, this town has an estimated total population of 36,147 of whom 18,552 were males and 17,595 were females. [ [http://www.csa.gov.et/text_files/2005_national_statistics.htm CSA 2005 National Statistics] , Table B.4] The 1994 census reported this town had a total population of 20,788 of whom 9,761 were males and 11,027 were females. The majority of its inhabitants belong to the Azebo and Wolo Oromo.

History

In January 1942 a clash at Kobo between locals and soldiers collecting taxes led to three British officers and nine Ethiopian soldiers killed. The Ethiopian government responded with an aerial bombardment of the town. This skirmish was one of the opening events of the Woyane rebellion. [Gebru Tareke, "Ethiopia: Power and protest" (Lawrenceville: Red Sea Press, 1996), p. 106]

In mid-1972, a young District Development Officer, Ababuhme Kohsole, sent a full report concerning conditions in the district to the Ministry of Community Development; this was the first warning of what became the brutal 1974 famine which set off the Ethiopian Revolution and led to the fall of Emperor Haile Selassie. Ababuhme was severely reprimanded and told never to send such a negative report again.

In May 1983 the Church Relief Services made its first grant distributions from the Agency for International Development at Kobo, By the next year, with the famine clearly underway, several thousand Afar people had come to the Catholic mission in Kobo in search of help; they had fled the lowlands after losing all their livestock. Between 15 October and 2 November 1989 Kobo was subjected to four air attacks by the government forces. Casualties are not known, but the clinic was strafed by helicopter gunships.

In March 2007, the Amhara Regional Rehabilitation and Development Agency the creation of a state-owned cotton processing factory, and a cotton plantation on 305 hectares to supply it, with a capitalization of 63 million Birr . [ [http://www.waltainfo.com/EnNews/2007/Mar/26Mar2007/26566.htm "Tiret establishing cotton rolling factory, plantation with over 63 bln birr"] Walta Information Center (WIC)] The next month the Ethiopian Catholic Church announced the completion of a modern hospital with 50 beds. [ [http://www.waltainfo.com/EnNews/2007/Apr/06Apr2007/27149.htm "Church says hospital under construction with over 15 mln birr nearing completion in Kobo town"] (WIC)]

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