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Ogaden (pronounced and often spelled "Ogadēn") is a part of the Somali Region in Ethiopia. Sometimes known as "Abyssinian Somaliland," some locals refer to it as Ogadenia. The inhabitants are predominantly ethnic Somali and Muslim. The region, which is 369,000 square kilometres, borders Djibouti, Kenya, and Somalia, and has a population of 3,500,000 people. Important settlements include Kabri Dahar, Jijiga ,and Qabribayah. The region is at the center of the volatile Horn of Africa.
History It was colonized by Great Britain as a protectorate from the last quarter of the 19th century to the first half of the 20th century, before it was annexed by Ethiopia, although the boundary of British Somalia was one of the first to be fixed by treaty (June, 1897). Following their conquest of Italian East Africa, the British sought to partition the Ogaden from Ethiopia, intending, according to historian Bahru Zewde, to add it to "British Somaliland and the former Italian Somaliland, to form what was ominously christened Greater Somalia." Ethiopia unsuccessfully pleaded before the London Conference of the Allied Powers for the return of the Ogaden and Eritrea in 1945, but their persistent negotiations at last forced the British in 1948 to evacuate all of the Ogaden except for the northeastern part (called the Haud), and a corridor (called the Reserved Area) stretching from the Haud to French Somaliland (modern Djibouti). The British returned these last parts to Ethiopia in 1954. In the past, secessionist activities have involved the political goals and militaries of Ethiopia and Somalia. In the late 1970s, both countries fought the Ogaden War over control of this region and its peoples. At present, the main separatist group is the ONLF under its Chairman Mohamed O. Osman. Notes | ||||||||
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