“Dire Dawa, home of those filled with Life”

When the Ethio-Djibouti railway was under construction, the engineers faced a significant challenge. The mountains were too steep, the finances too fragile, and the relationship between the construction companies and Menelik II was steeped in mistrust. Harar, the intended first endpoint, was no longer a viable option. As a result, the line stopped at a village at the foot of the mountains, and Menelik II, following the tradition of his predecessors and successors in renaming conquered places as though they had no name, declared it “New Harar.” However, when the railway reached it in 1902, the village retained both of its names: Dire Dawa, meaning The Land of Remedy in Oromo, and Diri-dhaba, meaning The Spot of the Dir Clan in Somali. This place would later come to be known as the Queen City of the Desert.

Unlike most Ethiopian cities, which grew from military outposts, present-day Dire Dawa was born from trade. It spread out around the railway, first as a supply station, then as a commercial hub, a passageway between the sea and the interior of a landlocked country, a place that welcomed travellers and allowed them to stay. From 1917, the Red Sea’s proximity made it an economic artery, drawing traders from every direction. The city stretched along the Dechatu River, spilling into two distinct quarters—Kezira, the planned, orderly heart built by the railway company, and Magala, the organic, uncontained home of the natives. The Dechatu Bridge, built by the Italians, was the first of many to connect the two sides.

Kezira took its name from the Arabic jazeera, meaning island, though it was no island—only a colonial enclave, separated from the inhabitants of the rest of the town. The railway was its nucleus, from which five main roads extended outward like veins. European urban planning at its most ambitious. Wide streets lined with acacia trees, villas with spacious gardens and courtyards, a neat division of space—residential, administrative, commercial, service. No room for disorder.

The centre of these major roads radiating from the railway station leads to the main gate of the compound containing the Dire Dawa Palace. The palace, built between 1904 and 1905 on elevated ground by a Turkish architect as the residence of Ras Mekonnen, remains a symbol of power. Adjacent to the palace, with an inner door linking the two compounds, stands St. Michael Orthodox Church—one of the city’s earliest Christian institutions and a structural reminder of how the church was woven into the foundation of imperial governance.

Kezira belonged to railway officials, European expatriates, a scattering of Armenians, Italians, Greeks. A city within a city, its people moving between wooden porches and shaded boulevards, on the streets cobblestoned in the late 1930s, sealed within the order of their own making. While the nation was governed by Ethiopians, there were certain limits on indigenous people entering the Kezira area, which exhibited colonial settlement practices.

The main gate of Dire Dawa Palace.

But across the river, Magala—meaning "market" and "city" in both Somali and Oromo—thrived in the absence of design. Streets tangled into one another, colours clashed—brightly painted doors, intricately carved facades, shades of blue, ochre, and green. This was, and still is, the quarter of the Somalis, Oromos, Hararis, Arabs, Indians, Pakistanis, and Amharas. A place where five, six, seven languages hum through the markets, where voices layer over one another in trade, greetings, and prayer. The city’s soul resides here, in Magala, in the alleyways where scents curl into the air—cumin, cardamom, sizzling oil, the sweet burn of incense. Magala’s multiculturalism extends beyond architecture, colours, and language to include its renowned culinary scene, holding its flavours close, offering desserts no other place in Ethiopia could match—baklava crisp with honey, mushabak twisted in delicate spirals, halawa dense with sugar and spice, dud pera melting on the tongue. Recipes carried from Arabia, Gujarat, Harar, and homes left behind. 

This was, and still is, the quarter of the Somalis, Oromos, Hararis, Arabs, Indians, Pakistanis, and Amharas. A place where five, six, seven languages hum through the markets, where voices layer over one another in trade, greetings, and prayer.

Magala is also home to the now-defunct Mahrash Indian Community School, the Abadir Islamic School, the city’s largest Muslim cemetery, the Sayyid Abdallah Cemetery, and the Jumma’ Mosque, which, despite its presence since 1902, has taken its current form by order of Lij Eyasu, one of the most controversial kings of the Ethiopian Empire who was rumoured to have converted to Islam. Both the cemetery and the mosque remain significant landmarks.

Although the city has expanded on both sides of the river and horizontally, Kezira and Magala remain the heart of Dire Dawa. Markets serve as crucial meeting points for residents from all quarters. One of the oldest and largest markets, Kefira, founded in 1947, mirrors the old walled city of Harar with its Moorish-style arches and narrow lanes. Alongside Ashawa and Taiwan Market, Kefira vividly showcases the city’s cultural, linguistic, and ethnic diversity, harmonised by the universality of trade. The nomadic herders arriving from the hinterlands with their camels laden with charcoal, milk, and wood, the vibrant hues of various spices, the traditional attire of different communities, the mule-carts—once the main mode of transportation but now mostly seen in market areas—and the multilingual exchanges filling the air, all make Kefira a living embodiment of the exotic markets often described in folktales.

Like most cities in the Hararge region, Dire Dawa moves to the slow, steady pulse of khat. Here, it is not a vice but a ritual, an anchor. In every gathering, the plant finds its place. A wedding, a funeral, a casual afternoon among friends—it begins and ends with khat. Under tents outside mourning houses, men sit in silence, chewing, letting grief settle between them. In the backrooms of tea shops, students, poets, and old men debate the world with slow, deliberate words. They whisper prayers before biting into the first leaf, a habit passed down through generations, a relic of belief, of gratitude. The city breathes khat, and even those who arrive as strangers soon learn its place in the rhythm of life. Even the Chinese in Dire Dawa chew khat, they say, and it is true.

Like most cities in the Hararge region, Dire Dawa moves to the slow, steady pulse of khat. Here, it is not a vice but a ritual, an anchor.

Magala’s cultural diversity provided an opportunity for ethnic groups to influence each other culturally. This included the incubation of new means of resistance and the collective courage to reclaim long-deprived rights, such as singing in one’s own language.

In the 1960s, when the Somali and Amharic music scenes were growing vibrantly into multi-genre and well-established industries, the fact that it was still illegal to sing in the Oromo language was a saddening reality. Seeing their fellow Somalis, Amharas, and Hararis singing in their own languages, a small group of Oromo activists in Dire Dawa, risking persecution, formed the first-ever Oromo musical band, Afraan Qallo, in 1962. The band started performing at weddings and minor events while hiding from the watch of the government. It is said that one of the very first airings of their songs was broadcast by none other than Radio Muqdisho, which at the time had an Oromo language programme hosted by one of the founding members of the band, journalist Ayub Abubaker, who was assassinated later in 1966.

Oromo music has since become one of the main vessels for Oromo nationalism and the Oromo resistance that was taking shape at the time. Simultaneously, through the experimentation of musical geniuses like Ali Birra, it was structurally catching up with the musical evolution taking place among other communities in the region. It was this culture of resistance music, which began in the chewing sessions and weddings in the Magaala quarter, that extended to the late Hachalu Hundesa, whose music served as the soundtrack to the nationwide protests in 2018. 

A house in Kezira.

In one of his songs dedicated to Dire Dawa, the late singer-songwriter and Oromo nationalist, Ali Birra, refers to the city as the “Home of those filled with life and understanding.” It was this overflowing cultural life, offering a chance to teach and learn from others, that played an undeniable role in bringing modern Oromo music to life and in making the vast Oromo population at the time realise, in the words of Mohamed Hassan, a historian who specialises in Oromo history at Georgia State University, “that Oromo music was as good as anyone’s music.”

Due to its proximity to and the shared railway history with Djibouti, Dire Dawa is considered a second home by most Djiboutians. Similarly, many Somalis from Dire Dawa consider Djibouti their second home, with prominent figures, such as the Djiboutian president, Ismail Omar Guelleh, originally from Dire Dawa.

But the Queen City of the Desert is not always a haven of harmony. It is also a city of claims, of contested ownership. Somalis, with the main residence of the Issa clans’ Ugaas, say it belongs to them. Oromos, reiterating oral echoes of ancient presence, say it has always been theirs. History, like a merchant, offers both groups their own versions, their own justifications. Under Haile Selassie and Mengistu, these tensions were pressed down, held beneath the surface of imperial and military rule. But with the fall of the Derg in 1991, everything unravelled. The Issa and Gurgura Liberation Front and the Oromo Liberation Front fought to stake their claim. Blood spilled onto the streets, the city teetered, and in the end, neither side won. Dire Dawa became a chartered ground, neither Oromia nor the Somali Region, a city caught between two rivalries. Governance was split—40 percent Somali, 40 percent Oromo, 20 percent under the state. A fragile equilibrium, a constant negotiation.

Earlier, in the late 70s, the Somali claim for the city fitted very well into the broader agenda of Somali nationalism, which was at the time reaching its zenith. Siad Barre’s attempt to forcibly absorb the Ogaden and other Somali territories back from Ethiopian custody, a move that would ultimately serve as the coup de grâce of his rule, was met with a mixed reaction by most Somalis in Ethiopia. This was for a reason: first, the obvious ethnic bond between the Somalis in the country and the Somali military made both the Derg and other ethnicities perceive the local Somalis with suspicion. This suspicion later developed into real offences against the Somalis, including those in Dire Dawa. Shiret Labash (wearers of sargon) and Sargo (trespassers) were the names given to the Somalis at the time. Based on personal accounts, there were many incidents in which Somalis were tortured and persecuted by the Derg military and other non-state factions, based on claims that the local Somalis were guiding Somali war jets. These incidents caused confusion in how the Somalis had to react. As one of my uncles told me, at the mandatory rallies supporting the Ethiopian military, Somalis would scream praises for Mengistu in Amharic, then curse him under their breath in Somali.

Based on personal accounts, there were many incidents in which Somalis were tortured and persecuted by the Derg military and other non-state factions, based on claims that the local Somalis were guiding Somali war jets.

Even now, the city feels the tremors of distant conflicts. When Oromos in the Somali region suffer, the Oromos of Dire Dawa rise. When Somalis in Awaday are attacked, Dire Dawa’s Somali youth take to the streets. Politics in the surrounding lands leak into the city’s veins. The river, dry most of the year, carries whispers of old wounds.

In 2010, the Ethio-Djibouti railway, after struggling for decades, finally ceased to operate. The heartbeat of the city went silent. When the last train was killed, the final echo of its whistles faded into the hills. The tracks lay empty, the platforms abandoned, the great iron gates of the train station locked. No more carriages filled with traders from the coast, no more travellers stepping onto the platform with dust on their boots. The economy, once fed by the steady arrival of contraband goods and people, began to wither. The Queen City of the Desert became a relic of its own past, a place where the echoes of prosperity lingered in the walls but no longer in the air.

The economic decline, followed by political instability across the country, exacerbated ethnic skirmishes in the city. Ethnic tensions in Dire Dawa are never solely about ethnicity. They are tangled with religion, history, and symbols that somehow define identity and trigger memories. The Amhara community, often associated with the Orthodox Church by Somalis and Oromos, finds itself at the centre of the storm. And in 2018, when the Qeerroo protests erupted across the country, it wasn’t just about the Oromo youth making noise, making demands—it became a spark for everyone to scream their questions and complaints aloud. The streets of Dire Dawa crackled with unrest during those protests, a mixture of generations calling for change. Satanaw—an Amhara-led group advocating for political change and power-sharing—formed a response. Initially, it was about reaction and showing presence, defending what was seen as theirs. Then, it shifted. The 40-40-20 policy became more than just a statistic. For the Amhara community, it was always a silent critique, an implicit rejection.

Flags—flags became the silent warriors, emblems of identity and defiance. The Qeerroo, with their OLF flag, demanded visibility, laying claim to their own piece of history, while the Satanaw activists responded in kind, their streets painted in the Ethiopian tricolour, yet altered. They removed the federal emblem, tweaking it to their own sense of pride. And sometimes, they even painted over it with the royal seal, the Lion of Judah—an image that had once meant oppression to Oromos and Somalis. It was a symbol that bled memory, deep-rooted in the past, now a trigger.

In this tumultuous period, it wasn’t just in protests that these communities fought for presence—it was in every moment, every space where they could mark their existence. Religious ceremonies became stages for showing numbers, for asserting who belonged. Orthodox Thabots, followed by hundreds of Christian worshippers, often passed by mosques, and if it was Friday, the tension was palpable. Eid prayers, too, became more than just religious observance. People came out, yes, to perform the prayers, but also to show who they were, to demonstrate their numbers, their presence. These moments weren’t just about faith—they were about staking a claim to space, asserting a presence that could not be ignored. And in this city, every display became a flashpoint, a reminder that the conflict was never just about what happened yesterday—it was about who gets to define today.

People came out, yes, to perform the prayers, but also to show who they were, to demonstrate their numbers, their presence.

Dire Dawa has long been a city where different ethnicities lived side by side, even as certain villages carried the names of their dominant groups. Hafat Issa was primarily home to the Issa Somalis, Addis Katama had a strong Amhara presence, and newer areas like Jarba became predominantly Oromo. Despite these dominant identities, the villages were never exclusive—Somalis, Oromos, Amharas, and others lived throughout the city, interwoven by trade, marriage, and daily life.

That balance began to shift after 2019. Political tensions, regional conflicts, and growing ethnic polarization started to harden these divisions. More and more, people moved into villages where their own ethnicity was the majority, leaving behind the mixed neighbourhoods that had once defined the city. The interwoven social fabric of Dire Dawa began to unravel, replaced by quiet separations. Where once the city’s markets and streets had blurred ethnic boundaries, invisible lines now divided its quarters, marking a shift from coexistence to cautious distance.

Furthermore, Dire Dawa’s historical landscape is also rapidly eroding. Modern development projects have led to the demolition of key heritage sites, replacing century-old architecture with contemporary high-rise structures. The Local Development Project (LDP) has indiscriminately removed elements of Kezira’s identity, including the symbolic railway statue at the city’s central square, which was later restored after public upheaval. In the Magala quarter, gentrification and commercial pressures threaten its architectural character. The slow disappearance of the Arabian houses and the expansion of modern infrastructure risks erasing the quarter’s distinct urban identity.

The Local Development Project (LDP) has indiscriminately removed elements of Kezira’s identity, including the symbolic railway statue at the city’s central square, which was later restored after public upheaval. In the Magala quarter, gentrification and commercial pressures threaten its architectural character.

Despite Dire Dawa’s rich historical layers, the city lacks strong heritage conservation mechanisms. The dismantling of iconic structures, the unchecked expansion of new developments, and the absence of coordinated preservation efforts pose an existential threat to Dire Dawa’s identity. Experts argue that designating Kezira as a Historic Cultural Landscape could safeguard its heritage, ensuring that Dire Dawa’s unique history is preserved for future generations.

The defunct station bell still rings three times on working days, both as an alarm of time and a reminder of a lost legacy. The people still step into the streets, still chew their khat, still talk of the past, but there is something missing now, something no longer flowing through the veins of the city. Dire Dawa, once a city of transit, has become a city waiting for something that will never return. And, as one friend noted on his first visit, present-day Dire Dawa stands as a city of blurriness.

And yet, despite all this, it remains a place where languages fold into each other, where a person raised there is expected to speak at least three. Where the past lingers in the taste of a dessert, in the sound of a muezzin’s call overlapping with church bells, in the sight of men seated on the railway steps, watching the sun dip behind the hills. Five o’clock comes, and the old train station bell rings out. The workday is over. The people step into the streets, strolling through the twilight, the air thick with heat, dust, and memory. After the stroll, they make their way to enjoy their infamous potato salad and boiled eggs at the sidewalks. Dire Dawa—New Harar, The Land of Remedy, Dir’s paradise lost, The Queen City of the Desert—moves forward, as it always has, caught between what it was and what it will become.